Transcriber’s Note:

Footnotes have been collected at the end of each chapter, and are linked for ease of reference.

Minor errors, attributable to the printer, have been corrected. Please see the transcriber’s [note] at the end of this text for details regarding the handling of any textual issues encountered during its preparation.

The cover image has been amended to add title page information, and, as amended, is added to the public domain.

THE
STATE OF THE DEAD
AND THE
Destiny of the Wicked.

BY URIAH SMITH.

STEAM PRESS

OF THE SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTIST PUBLISHING ASSOCIATION,

BATTLE CREEK, MICH.:

1873.

PREFACE.

Questions of such absorbing interest to the human race as “The State of the Dead,” and “The Destiny of the Wicked,” should command the candid attention of all serious and thoughtful men. The Bible alone can answer the inquiries of the human mind on these important subjects; and if the Bible is the full and complete revelation which it claims to be, we must believe that it has answered them. What that answer is, the following pages undertake to show.

On the questions here discussed there is at the present time a daily-increasing agitation in the theological world. The frequency with which these topics come to the surface in the religious papers of the land, is evidence of this. Not only in this country, but in England and Germany, the views of Bible students on these points are in a state of transition. The doctrine that there is no eternal life out of Christ, and that consequently the punishment of the wicked is not to be eternal misery, is now able to present an array of adherents so strong in numbers, so cultivated in intellect, and so correct at heart, that many of its opponents are changing their base of operations toward it, and taking steps looking not only to a toleration of its existence, but to a compromise with its claims.

In adding another book to the many which have been written on this subject, the object has been to give in a concise manner a more general view of the teaching of the word of God, the ultimate source of authority, on this question, than has heretofore been presented. A chapter on the Claims of Philosophy is appended to the Biblical argument, more to answer the queries of those who attach importance to such considerations, than because they are entitled to any real weight in the determination of this controversy.

The interest that has of late years arisen on the subject of the state of the dead, is timely. Spiritualism, with its foul embrace and pestilential breath, is seeking to spread its pollutions over all the land; and it appeals to the popular views of the condition of man in death as a foundation for its claims. The teaching of the Bible on this point is the most effectual antidote to that unhallowed delusion. Before the true light on the intermediate state, and the destiny of the wicked, not only spiritualism with its foul brood flees away, but purgatory, saint worship, universalism, and a host of other errors all go down.

In this period of agitation and transition, let no man blindly commit himself to predetermined views, but hold himself ready to follow truth always and everywhere. Let him hold his sympathies entirely at its disposal. This is the course of safety; for truth has angels, Christ and God upon its side; and though it had but one adherent on the earth, it would triumph all the same. So while truth can receive no detriment from the combined opposition of all the world, its adherents, few in number though they may be, will secure in the end an everlasting gain.

U. S.

Battle Creek, May 2, 1873.

MAN’S NATURE AND DESTINY.

CHAPTER I.
PRIMARY QUESTIONS.

Gradually the mind awakes to the mystery of life. Excepting only the first pair, every adult member of the human race has come up through the helplessness of infancy and the limited acquirements of childhood. All have reached their full capacity to think and do, only by the slow development of their mental and physical powers. Without either counsel or co-operation of our own, we find ourselves on the plane of human existence, subject to all the conditions of the race, and hastening forward to its destiny, whatever it may be.

A retinue of mysterious inquiries throng our steps. Whence came this order of things? Who ordained this arrangement? For what purpose are we here? What is our nature? What are our obligations? And whither are we bound? Life, what a mystery! Having commenced, will it ever end? Once we did not exist; are we destined to that condition again? Death we see everywhere around us. Its victims are silent, cold, and still. They give no outward evidence of retaining any of those faculties, mental, emotional, or physical, which distinguished them when living. Is death the end of all these? And is death the extinction of the race? These are questions which have ever excited in the human mind an intensity of thought, and a strength of feeling, which no other subjects can produce.

To these questions, so well-defined, so definite in their demands, and of such all-absorbing interest, where shall we look for an answer? Have we any means within our reach by which to solve these problems? We look abroad upon the earth and admire its multiplied forms of life and beauty; we mark the revolving seasons and the uniform and beneficent operations of nature; we look to the heavenly bodies and behold their glory, and the regularity of their mighty motions--do these answer our questions? They tell us something, but not all. They tell us of the great Creator and upholder of all things; for, as the apostle says, “The invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead.” They tell us upon whom our existence depends and to whom we are amenable.

But this only intensifies our anxiety a thousand fold. For now we want to know upon what conditions his favor is suspended. What must we do to meet his requirements? How may we secure his approbation? He surely is a being who will reward virtue and punish sin. Sometime our deeds must be compared with his requirements, and sentence be rendered in accordance therewith. How will this affect our future existence? Deriving it from him, does he suspend its continuance on our obedience? or has he made us self-existent beings, so that we must live forever, if not in his favor, then the conscious recipients of his wrath?

With what intense anxiety the mind turns to the future. What is to be the issue of this mysterious problem of life? Who can tell? Nature is silent. We appeal to those who are entering the dark valley. But who can reveal the mysteries of those hidden regions till he has explored them? and the “curtain of the tent into which they enter, never outward swings.” Sternly the grave closes its heavy portals against every attempt to catch a glimpse of the unknown beyond. Science proves itself a fool on this momentous question. The imagination breaks down; and the human mind, unaided, sinks into a melancholy, but well-grounded, despair.

God must tell us, or we can never know what lies beyond this state of existence, till we experience it for ourselves. He who has placed us here, must himself make known to us his purposes and his will, or we are forever in the dark. Of this, all reverent and thoughtful minds are well assured.

Professor Stuart, in his “Exegetical Essays on Several Words Relating to Future Punishment,” says:--

“The light of nature can never scatter the darkness in question. This light has never yet sufficed to make the question clear to any portion of our benighted race, whether the soul is immortal. Cicero, incomparably the most able defender of the soul’s immortality of which the heathen world can yet boast, very ingenuously confesses that, after all the arguments which he had adduced in order to confirm the doctrine in question, it so fell out that his mind was satisfied of it only when directly employed in contemplating the arguments adduced in its favor. At all other times he fell unconsciously into a state of doubt and darkness. It is notorious, also, that Socrates, the next most able advocate, among the heathen, of the same doctrine, has adduced arguments to establish the never-ceasing existence of the soul which will not bear the test of examination. If there be any satisfactory light, then, on the momentous question of a future state, it must be sought from the word of God.”

H. H. Dobney, Baptist minister, of England (Future Punishment, p. 107), says:--

“Reason cannot prove man to be immortal. We may devoutly enter the temple of nature, we may reverently tread her emerald floor, and gaze on her blue, ‘star-pictured ceiling,’ but to our anxious inquiry, though proposed with heart-breaking intensity, the oracle is dumb, or like those of Delphi and Dodona, mutters only an ambitious reply that leaves us in utter bewilderment.”

And what information have they been able to give us, who have either been ignorant of divine revelation, or, having the light, have turned their backs upon it? Listen to a little of what they have told us, which sufficiently indicates the character of the knowledge they possessed.

Socrates, when about to drink the fatal hemlock, said:--

“I am going out of the world, and you are to continue in it; but which of us has the better part, is a secret to every one but God.”

Cicero, after recounting the various opinions of philosophers on this subject, levels all their systems to the ground by this ingenuous confession:--

“Which of these is true, God alone knows, and which is the most probable, is a very great question.”

Seneca, reviewing the arguments of the ancients on this subject, said:--

“Immortality, however desirable, was rather promised than proved by these great men.”

And the skeptic Hobbs, when death was forcing him from this state of existence, could only exclaim, with dread uncertainty, “I am taking a leap in the dark!”--dying words not calculated to inspire any great degree of comfort and assurance in the hearts of those who are inclined to follow in his steps.

With a full sense of our need, we turn, then, to the revelation which God has given us in his word. Will this answer our inquiries? It is not a revelation if it does not; for this must be the very object of a revelation. Logicians tell us that there is “an antecedent probability in favor of a divine revelation, arising from the nature of the Deity and the moral condition of man.” On the same ground, there must be an equal probability that, if we are immortal, never-dying beings, that revelation will plainly tell us so.

To the Bible alone, we look for correct views on the important subjects of the character of God, the nature of life and death, the resurrection, Heaven, and hell. But our views upon all these, must be, to a great extent, governed by our views of the nature and destiny of man. On this subject, therefore, the teachings of the Bible must, of consistency, be sufficiently clear and full.

Prominent upon the pages of inspiration, we see pointed out the great distinction which God has put between right and wrong, the rewards he has promised to virtue, and the punishment he has threatened against sin; we find it revealed that but few, comparatively, will be saved, while the great majority of our race will be lost; and as the means by which the perdition of ungodly men is accomplished, we find described in fearfully ominous terms, a lake of fire burning with brimstone, intense and unquenchable.

How these facts intensify the importance of the question, Are all men immortal? Are these wicked immortal? Is their portion an eternity of incomprehensible, conscious torture, and unutterable woe? Have they in their nature a principle so tenacious of life that the severest implements of destruction with which the Almighty can assail it, an eternity of his intensest devouring fire can make no inroads upon its inviolate vitality? Fearful questions!--questions in reference to which it cannot be that the word of God will leave us in darkness, or perplex us with doubt, or deceive us with falsehood.

In commending the reader to the word of God on this great theme, it is unnecessary to suggest to any candid mind the spirit in which we should present our inquiries. Prejudice or passion should not come within the sacred precincts of such an investigation. If God has plainly revealed that all the finally impenitent of our race are doomed to an eternity of conscious misery, we must accept that fact, however hard it may be to find any correspondence between the magnitude of the guilt and the infinitude of the punishment, and however hard it may be to reconcile such treatment with the character of a God who has declared himself to be “Love.” If, on the other hand, the record shows that God’s government can be vindicated, sin meet its just deserts, and at the same time such disposition be finally made of the lost, as to relieve the universe from the horrid spectacle of a hell forever burning, filled with sensitive beings, frenzied with fire and flame, and blaspheming in their ever-strengthening agony--can any one be the less ready to accept this fact, or hesitate, on this account, to join in the ascription, “Great and marvelous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints”?

CHAPTER II.
IMMORTAL AND IMMORTALITY.

In turning to the Bible, our only source of information on this question, to learn whether or not man is immortal, the first and most natural step in the inquiry is to ascertain what use the Bible makes of the terms “immortal” and “immortality.” How frequently does it use them? To whom does it apply them? Of whom does it make immortality an attribute? Does it affirm it of man or any part of him?

Should we, without opening the Bible, endeavor to form an opinion of its teachings from the current phraseology of modern theology, we should conclude it to be full of declarations in the most explicit terms that man is in possession of an immortal soul and deathless spirit; for the popular religious literature of to-day, which claims to be a true reflection of the declarations of God’s word, is full of these expressions. Glibly they fall from the lips of the religious teacher. Broadcast they go forth from the religious press. Into orthodox sermons and prayers they enter as essential elements. They are appealed to as the all-prolific source of comfort and consolation in case of those who mourn the loss of friends by death. We are told that they are not dead; for “there is no death; what seems so is transition;” they have only changed to another state of being, only gone before; for the soul is immortal, the spirit never dying; and it cannot for a moment cease its conscious existence.

This is all right provided the Bible warrants such declarations. But it is far from safe to conclude without examination that the Bible does warrant them; for whoever has read church history knows that it is little more than a record of the unceasing attempts of the great enemy of all truth to corrupt the practices of the professors of Christianity, and to pervert and obscure the simple teachings of God’s word with the absurdities and mysticisms of heathen mythology. It has been only by the utmost vigilance that any Christian institution has been preserved, or any Christian doctrine saved, free from some of the corruptions of the great systems of false religion which have always held by far the greater portion of our race in their chains of darkness and superstition. And if we arraign the creeds of the six hundred Protestant sects, as containing many unscriptural dogmas, it is only what every one of them does, in reference to the other five hundred and ninety-nine.

To the law, then, and to the testimony. What say the Scriptures on the subject of immortality?

Fact 1. The terms “immortal” and “immortality” are not found in the Old Testament, either in our English version or in the original Hebrew. There is, however, one expression, in Gen. 3:4, which is, perhaps, equivalent in meaning, and was spoken in reference to the human race; namely, “Thou shalt not surely die.” But unfortunately for believers in natural immortality, this declaration came from one whom no person would like to acknowledge as the author of his creed. It is what the devil said to Eve, the terrible deception by means of which he accomplished her fall, and so “brought death into the world and all our woe.” But does not the New Testament supply this seemingly unpardonable omission of the Old, by many times affirming that all men have immortality?

Remembering the many times you have heard and read from Biblical expositors that you were in possession of an immortal soul, how many times do you think that declaration is made in the New Testament? One hundred times? Fifty? Thirty? Twenty? Ten? No. Five? No. Twice? No. Once? NO! Does not the New Testament then apply the term immortal to anything? Yes; and this brings us to

Fact 2. The term immortal is used but once in the New Testament, in the English version, and is then applied to God. The following is the passage: 1 Tim. 1:17: “Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.”

The original word, however, αφθαρτος (aphthartos) from which immortal is here translated, occurs in six other instances in the New Testament, in every one of which it is rendered incorruptible. The word is defined by Greenfield, “Incorruptible, immortal, imperishable, undying, enduring.”

It is used, first, to describe God, in Rom. 1:23, “And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.”

It is used in 1 Cor. 9:25, to describe the heavenly crown of the overcomer: “And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible.”

It is used in 1 Cor. 15:52, to describe the immortal bodies of the redeemed: “In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.”

It is used in 1 Tim. 1:17, to describe God as already quoted.

It is used in 1 Pet. 1:4, to describe the inheritance reserved in Heaven for the overcomer: “To an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, that fadeth not away, reserved in Heaven for you.”

It is used in 1 Pet. 1:23, to describe the principle by which regeneration is wrought in us: “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever.”

It is used in 1 Pet. 3:4, to describe the heavenly adorning which we are to labor to secure: “But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.”

And these are all the instances of its use. In no one of them is it applied to man or any part of him, as a natural possession. But does not the last text affirm that man is in possession of a deathless spirit? The words “incorruptible” and “spirit” both occur, it is true, in the same verse; but they do not stand together, another noun and its adjectives coming in between them; they are not in the same case, incorruptible being in the dative, and spirit, in the genitive; they are not of the same gender, incorruptible being masculine or feminine, and spirit, neuter. What is it which is in the sight of God of great price? The ornament of a meek and quiet spirit. What is the nature of this ornament? It is not destructible like the laurel wreath, the rich apparel, the gold and gems with which the unsanctified man seeks to adorn himself; but it is incorruptible, a disposition molded by the Spirit of God, some of the fruit of that heavenly tree which God values. Does man by nature possess this incorruptible ornament, this meek and quiet spirit? No; for we are exhorted to procure and adopt this instead of the other. This, and this only, the text affirms. To say that this text proves that man is in possession of a deathless spirit, is no more consistent nor logical than it would be to say that Paul declares that man has an immortal soul, because in his first epistle to Timothy (1:17), he uses the word immortal, and in his first epistle to the Thessalonians (5:23), he uses the word soul. The argument would be the same in both cases.

Fact 3. The word “immortality” occurs but five times in the New Testament, in our English version. The following are the instances:--

In Rom. 2:7, it is set forth as something for which we are to seek by patient continuance in well-doing: “To them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, [God will render] eternal life.”

In 1 Cor. 15:53, 54, it is twice used to describe what this mortal must put on before we can inherit the kingdom of God: “For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.”

In 1 Tim. 6:16, it is applied to God, and the sweeping declaration is made that he alone has it: “Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honor and power everlasting. Amen.”

In 2 Tim. 1:10, we are told from what source we receive the true light concerning it, which forever cuts off the claim that reason or science can demonstrate it, or that the oracles of heathenism can make it known to us: “But now is made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.”

How has Christ brought life and immortality to light? Answer: By abolishing death. There could have been no life nor immortality without this; for the race were hopelessly doomed to death through sin. Then by what means and for whom has he abolished death? Answer: By dying for man and rising again, a victor over death; and he has wrought this work only for those who will accept of it through him; for all who reject his proffered aid will meet at last the same fate that would have been the lot of all, had Christ never undertaken in our behalf. Thus through the gospel, the good news of salvation through him, he has brought to light the fact, not that all men are by nature already in possession of immortality, but that a way is opened whereby we may at last gain possession of this inestimable boon.

As with the word immortal, so with immortality: the original from which it comes, occurs a few more times than it is so translated in the English version. There are two words translated immortality. These are ἀθανασία (athanasia) and ἀφθαρσία (aphtharsia). The former is defined by Greenfield and Robinson simply “immortality,” and is so translated in every instance. It occurs three times, in 1 Cor. 15:53, 54; 1 Tim. 6:16, as noticed above. The latter is defined, by the same authorities, “incorruptibility, incorruptness; by implication, immortality.” In addition to the instances above cited, it occurs in the following passages; in all eight times:--

1 Cor. 15:42: “So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption.” In verses 50, 53 and 54, of the same chapter, it is that incorruption which corruption [our present mortal condition] does not inherit, and which this corruptible must put on before we can enter into the kingdom of God. In Eph. 6:24, it is used to describe the love we should bear to Christ, and in Titus 2:7, the quality of the doctrine we should hold, in both which instances it is translated “sincerity.”

We now have before us all the testimony of the Bible relative to immortality. So far from being applied to man, the term is used as in Rom. 1:23, to point out the contrast between God and man. God is incorruptible or immortal. Man is corruptible or mortal. But if the real man, the essential being, consists of an undecaying soul, a deathless spirit, he, too, is incorruptible, and this contrast could not be drawn. It is placed before us as an object of hope for which we are to seek: declarations which would be a fraud and deception if we already have it. It is used to distinguish between heavenly and eternal objects, and those that are earthly and decaying. In view of these facts, no candid mind can dissent from the following

Conclusion: So far as its use of the terms “immortal” and “immortality” is concerned, the Bible contains no proof that man is in possession of an undying nature.

CHAPTER III.
THE IMAGE OF GOD.

If man is immortal, we should naturally suppose that the Bible would make known so weighty a truth in some of the instances where it has had occasion to use the words immortal and immortality. Where else could it more properly be revealed? And the fact that its use of those terms affords no proof that man is in possession of this great attribute, but rather that it belongs to God alone, should cause a person to receive with great allowance the positive assertions of popular theology on this question. Nevertheless it is supposed that there are other sources from which proof can be drawn that man has a hold on life equal with that of Jehovah himself; so that he will live as long as God exists.

The first of these is the opening testimony of the Bible concerning man, which asserts that he was to be made in the image of God. Gen. 1:26, 27: “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”

The first impulse of a person unacquainted with this controversy would be to ask in astonishment what this has to do with the immortality of man; nor would his astonishment be in any wise diminished when he heard the reply that as God is immortal, man, made in his image, must be immortal also. Has God, then, no other attribute but immortality, that we must confine it to this? Is not God omnipotent? Yes. Is man? No. Is not God omnipresent? Yes. Is man? No. Is not God omniscient? Yes. Is man? No. Is not God independent and self-existent? Yes. Is man? No. Is not God infallible? Yes. Is man? No. Then why single out the one attribute of immortality, and make the likeness of man to God consist wholly in this? In the form of a syllogism the popular argument stands thus:--

Major Premise: God is immortal. 1 Tim. 1:17.

Minor Premise: Man is created in the image of God. Gen. 1:27.

Conclusion: Therefore man is immortal.

This is easily quashed by another equally good, thus:--

1. God is omnipotent.

2. Man is made in the image of God.

3. Therefore man is omnipotent.

This conclusion, by being brought within the cognizance of our senses, becomes more obviously, though it is not more essentially, absurd. It shows either that the argument for immortality drawn from the image of God, is unqualified assumption, or that puny and finite man is clothed with all the attributes of the deity.

In what respect, then, is man in the image of his Maker? A universal rule of interpretation, applying to Bible language as well as any other, is to allow every word its most obvious and literal import, unless some plain reason exists for giving it a mystical or figurative meaning. The plain and literal definition of image is, as given by Webster, “An imitation, representation or similitude of any person or thing, sculptured, drawn, painted, or otherwise made perceptible to the sight; a visible presentation; a copy; a likeness; an effigy.” We have italicized a portion of this definition as containing an essential idea. An image must be something that is visible to the eye. How can we conceive of an image of anything that is not perceptible to the sight, and which we cannot take cognizance of by any of the senses? Even an image formed in the mind must be conceived of as having some sort of outward shape or form. In this sense, of having outward form, the word is used in each of the thirty-one times of its occurrence elsewhere in the Old Testament.

The second time the word image is used, it is used to show the relation existing between son and father, and is a good comment on the relation which Gen. 1:26, 27, asserts to exist between man and God. Gen. 5:3: “And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image.” No one would think of referring this to anything but physical resemblance. Now put the two passages together. Moses first asserts that God made man in his own image, after his likeness, and a few chapters farther on asserts that this same man begat a son in his own likeness, after his image. And, while all must admit that this latter refers to bodily form or physical shape, the theological schools tell us that the former, from the same writer, and with no intimation that it is used in any other sense, must refer solely to the attribute of immortality. Is not this taking unwarrantable liberty with the inspired testimony? There is no room for any other conclusion than that just as a son is, in outward appearance, the image of his father, so man possesses, not the nature and attributes of God in all their perfection, but a likeness or image of him in his physical form.

It may be said that the word image is used in a different sense in the New Testament, as, for example, in Col. 3:9, 10: “Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him.” Let it ever be borne in mind that the point which popular theology has to prove is that man is immortal because in the image of God. This text is against that view; for that which is here said to be in the image of Him that created him, is not the natural man himself, but the new man which is put on, implying that the image had been destroyed, and could be restored only in Christ. If, therefore, it meant immortality as used by Moses, this text would show that that immortality was not absolute, but contingent, and, having been lost by the race, can be regained only through Christ.

Eph. 4:24, shows how this new man is created: “And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.” Nothing is said about immortality even in connection with the new man.

Again: The word here translated image (ἐικων) is defined by Greenfield, as meaning by metonymy, “an exemplar, model, pattern, standard, Col. 3:10.” No such definition as this is given by Gesenius to the word in Genesis. So, though this Greek word may here have this sense, it affords no evidence that the Hebrew word in Gen. 1:26, 27, can refer to anything else but the outward form.

The same reasoning will apply to 1 Cor. 15:49, where the “image of the heavenly,” which is promised to the righteous, is something which is not in possession of the natural man, but will be attained through the resurrection: “we shall bear the image of the heavenly.” It cannot therefore refer to the image stamped upon man at his creation, unless it be admitted that that image, with all its included privileges, has been lost by the human race--an admission fatal to the hypothesis of the believers in the natural immortality of man.

In 1 Cor. 11:7, we read that man, as contrasted with the woman, is “the image and glory of God.” To make the expression “image of God” here mean immortality, is to confine it to man, and rob the better part of the human race of this high prerogative.

In Gen. 9:6, we read: “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God made he man.” Substituting what the image is here claimed to mean, we should have this very singular reading: “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed; for he made him immortal, and his life cannot be taken.” Evidently the reference in all such passages is, not only to “the human face divine,” but to the whole physical frame, which, in comparison with all other forms of animated existence, is upright and godlike.

But here the mystical interpretation of our current theology has thrown up what is considered an insuperable objection to this view; for how can man be physically in the image of God, when God is not a person, is without form, and has neither body nor parts? In reply, we ask, Where does the Bible say that God is a formless, impersonal being, having neither body nor parts? Does it not say that he is a spirit? John 4:24. Yes; and we inquire again, Does it not say that the angels are spirits? Heb. 1:7, 14. And are not the angels, saying nothing of those instances in which they have appeared to men in bodily form, and always in human shape (Gen. 18:1-8, 16-22; 32:24; Hos. 12:4; Num. 22:31; Judges 13:6, 13; Luke 1:11, 13, 28, 29; Acts 12:7-9; &c., &c.), always spoken of as beings having bodily form? A spirit, or spiritual being, as God is, in the highest sense, so far from not having a bodily form, must possess it, as the instrumentality for the manifestation of his powers. 1 Cor. 15:44.

Again, it is urged that God is omnipresent; and how can this be, if he is a person? Answer: He has a representative, his Holy Spirit, by which he is ever present and ever felt in all his universe. “Whither shall I go,” asks David, “from thy Spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?” Ps. 139:7. And John saw standing before the throne of God seven Spirits, which are declared to be “the seven Spirits of God,” and which are “sent[“sent] forth into all the earth.” Rev. 4:5; 5:6.

We now invite the attention of the reader to a little of the evidence that may be presented to show that God is a person, and so that man, though of course in an imperfect and finite degree, may be an image, or likeness of him, as to his bodily form.

1. God has made visible to mortal eyes parts of his person. Moses saw the God of Israel. Ex. 33:21-23. An immaterial being, if such a thing can be conceived of, without body or parts, cannot be seen with mortal eyes. To say that God assumed a body and shape for this occasion, places the common view in a worse light still; for it is virtually charging upon God a double deception: first, giving Moses to understand that he was a being with body and parts, and, secondly, under the promise of showing himself, showing him something that was not himself. And he told Moses that he would put his hand over him as he passed by, and then take it away, that he might see his back parts, but not his face. Has he hands? has he back parts? has he a face? If not, why try to convey ideas by means of language?

Again, Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy of the elders, saw the God of Israel. Ex. 24:9-11. “And there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone.” Has he feet? Or is the record that these persons saw them, a fabrication? No man, to be sure, has seen his face, nor could he do it and live, as God has declared. Ex. 33:20; John 1:18.

2. Christ, as manifested among men, is declared to be the image of God, and in his form. Christ showed, after his resurrection, that his immortal, though not then glorified, body, had flesh and bones. Luke 24:29. Bodily he ascended into Heaven where none can presume to deny him a local habitation. Acts 1:9-11; Eph. 1:20; Heb. 8:1. But Paul, speaking of this same Jesus, says, “Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature.” Col. 1:15. Here the antithesis expressed is between God who is invisible, and his image in the person of Christ which was visible. It follows, therefore, that what of Christ the disciples could see, which was his bodily form, was the image, to give them an idea of God, whom they could not see.

Again: “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God.” Phil. 2:5, 6. It remains to be told how Christ could be in the form of God, and yet God have no form.

Once more: “God who at sundry times, and in divers manners, spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person,” &c. Heb. 1:1-3. This testimony is conclusive. It is an inspired declaration that God has a personal form; and to give an idea of what that form is, it declares that Christ, just as we conceive of him as ascended up bodily on high, is the express image thereof.

The evidence already presented shows that there is no necessity for making the image of God in which man was created to consist of anything else but bodily form. But to whatever else persons may be inclined to apply it, Paul in his testimony to the Romans, forever destroys the possibility of making it apply to immortality. He says, Rom. 1:22, 23: “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.” The word here rendered uncorruptible is the same word that is translated immortal and applied to God in 1 Tim. 1:17. Now if God by making man in his image[his image] stamped him with immortality, man is just as incorruptible as God himself. But Paul says that he is not so; that while God is uncorruptible or immortal, man is corruptible or mortal. The image of God does not therefore, confer immortality.

CHAPTER IV.
THE BREATH OF LIFE.

Gen. 1:27, states, in general terms, the form in which man was created, as contrasted with other orders of animal life. In Gen. 2:7, the process is described by which this creation was accomplished. Finding no proof in the former passage that man was put in possession of immortality (see preceding chapter) we turn to the latter text to examine the claims based upon that. The verse reads: “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life: and man became a living soul.”

Here the advocates of man’s natural immortality endeavor to make a strong stand, as it is very proper they should do; for certainly if in that inspired record which describes the building up of man, the putting together of the different parts or constituent elements of which he is composed, there is no testimony that he was clothed with immortality, and no hook furnished upon which an argument for such an attribute can be hung, their whole system is shaken to its very foundation.

The claim based upon this passage is that man is composed of two parts: the body formed of the dust of the ground, and an immortal soul placed therein by God’s breathing into the nostrils of that dust-formed body the breath of life. We will let two representative men speak on this point, and state the popular view. Thomas Scott, D. D., on Gen. 2:7, says:--

“The Lord not only gave man life in common with the other animals which had bodies formed of the same materials; but immediately communicated from himself the rational soul, here denoted by the expression of breathing into his nostrils the breath of life.”

Adam Clarke, LL. D., on Gen. 2:7, says:--

“In the most distinct manner God shows us that man is a compound being, having a body and soul distinctly and separately created, the body out of the dust of the earth, the soul immediately breathed from God himself.”

Critics speak of this expression in a different manner from theologians; for whereas the latter make it confer immortality, and raise man in this respect to the same plane with his Maker, the former speak of it as suggestive of man’s frail nature, and his precarious tenure of life itself. Thus Dr. Conant says:--

“In whose nostrils is breath. Only breath, so frail a principle of life, and so easily extinguished.”

And in a note on Isa. 2:22, where the prophet says, “Cease ye from man whose breath is in his nostrils; for wherein is he to be accounted of?” he adds:--

“Not as in the common English version, ‘whose breath is in his nostrils;’ for where else should it be? The objection is not to its place in the body, which is the proper one for it, but to its frail and perishable nature.”

To the same intent the psalmist speaks, Ps. 146:3, 4: “Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.”

But let us examine the claim that the “breath of life” which God breathed into man conferred upon him the attribute of immortality. There was nothing naturally immortal, certainly, in the dust of which Adam was composed. Whatever of immortality he had, therefore, after receiving the breath of life, must have existed in that breath in itself considered. Hence, it must follow that the “breath of life” confers immortality upon any creature to which it is given. Will our friends accept this issue? If not, they abandon the argument; for certainly it can confer no more upon man than upon any other being. And if they do accept it, we will introduce to them a class of immortal associates not very flattering to their vanity nor to their argument; for Moses applies the very same expression to all the lower orders of the animal creation.

In Gen. 7:15, we read: “And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life.” It must be evident to every one, at a glance, that the whole animal creation, including man, is comprehended in the phrase “all flesh.” But verses 21 and 22 contain stronger expressions still: “And 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 face of the earth, and every man. All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died.”

Here the different orders of animals are named, and man is expressly mentioned with them; and all alike are said to have had in their nostrils the breath of life. It matters not that we are not told in the case of the lower animals how this breath was conferred, as in the case of man; for the immortality, if there is any in this matter, must reside, as we have seen, in the breath itself, not in the manner of its bestowal; and here it is affirmed that all creatures possess it; and of the animals, it is declared, as well as of man, that it resides in their nostrils.

It is objected that in Gen. 2:7, the “breath of life” as applied to man is plural, “breath of lives” (see Clarke), meaning both animal life, and that immortality which is the subject of our investigation. But, we reply, it is the same form in Gen. 7:22, where it is applied to all animals; and if the reader will look at the margin of this latter text he will see that the expression is stronger still, “the breath of the spirit of life” or of lives.

The language which Solomon uses respecting both men and beasts strongly expresses their common mortality: “For that which befalleth 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; so that a man [in this respect] hath no pre-eminence above a beast; for all is vanity. All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.” Eccl. 3:19, 20.

Thus the advocates of natural immortality by appealing to Moses’ record respecting the breath of life, are crushed beneath the weight of their own arguments; for if “the breath of life” proves immortality for man, it must prove the same for every creature to which it is given. The Bible affirms that all orders of the animal creation that live upon the land, possess it. Hence our opponents are bound to concede the immortality of birds, beasts, bugs, beetles, and every creeping thing. We are sometimes accused of bringing man down by our argument to a level with the beast. What better is this argument of our friends which brings beasts and reptiles up to a level with man? We deny the charge that we are doing the one, and shall be pardoned for declining to do the other.

CHAPTER V.
THE LIVING SOUL.

Finding no immortality for man in the breath of life which God breathed into man’s nostrils at the commencement of his mysterious existence, it remains to inquire if it resides in the “living soul,” which man, as the result of that action, immediately became. “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.” Gen. 2:7.

On this point also it is proper to let the representatives of the popular view define their position. Prof. H. Mattison, on the verse just quoted, says:--

“That this act was the infusion of a spiritual nature into the body of Adam, is evident from the following considerations: The phrase, ‘breath of life,’ is rendered breath of lives by all Hebrew scholars. Not only did animal life then begin, but another and higher life which constituted him not only a mere animal, but a ‘living soul.’ He was a body before,--he is now more than a body, a soul and body united. If he was a ‘soul’ before, then how could he become such by the last act of creation? And if he was not a soul before, but now became one, then the soul must have been superadded to his former material nature.”--Discussion with Storrs, p. 14.

Dr. Clarke, on Gen. 2:7, says:--

“In the most distinct manner God shows us that man is a compound being, having a body and soul distinctly and separately created; the body out of the dust of the earth, the soul immediately breathed from God himself.”

To the same end see the reasonings of Landis, Clark (D. W.), and others. Aware of the importance to their system of maintaining this interpretation, they very consistently rally to its support the flower of their strength. It is the redan of their works, and they cannot be blamed for being unwilling to surrender it without a decisive struggle. For if there is nothing in the inspired record of the formation of man, that record which undertakes to give us a correct view of his nature, to show that he is endowed with immortality, their system is not only shaken to its foundation, but even the foundation itself is swept entirely away.

The vital point, to which they bend all their energies, is somehow to show that a distinct entity, an intelligent part, an immortal soul, was brought near to that body as it lay there perfect in its organization, and thrust therein, which immediately began through the eyes of that body to see, through its ears to hear, through its lips to speak, and through its nerves to feel. Query: Was this soul capable of performing all these functions before it entered the body? If it was, why thrust it within this prison house? If it was not, will it be capable of performing them after it leaves the body?

Heavy drafts are made on rhetoric in favor of this superadded soul. Figures of beauty are summoned to lend to the argument their aid. An avalanche of flowers is thrown upon it, to adorn its strength, or perchance to hide its weakness. But when we search for the logic, we find it a chain of sand. Right at the critical point, the argument fails to connect; and so after all their expenditure of effort, after all their lofty flights, and sweating toil, their conclusion comes out--blank assumption. Why? Because they are endeavoring to reach a result which they are dependent upon the text to establish, but which the text directly contradicts. The record does not say that God formed a body, and put therein a superadded soul, to use that body as an instrument; but he formed man of the dust. That which was formed of the dust was the man himself, not simply an instrument for the man to use when he should be put therein. Adam was just as essentially a man before the breath of life was imparted, as after that event. This was the difference: before, he was a dead man; afterward, a living one. The organs were all there ready for their proper action. It only needed the vitalizing principle of the breath of life to set them in motion. That came, and the lungs began to expand, the heart to beat, the blood to flow, and the limbs to move; then was exhibited all the phenomena of physical action; then, too, the brain began to act, and there was exhibited all the phenomena of mental action, perception, thought, memory, will, &c.

The engine is an engine before the motive power is applied. The bolts, bars, pistons, cranks, shafts, and wheels, are all there. The parts designed to move are ready for action. But all is silent and still. Apply the steam, and it springs, as it were, into a thing of life, and gives forth all its marvelous exhibitions of celerity and power.

So with man. When the breath of life was imparted, which, as we have seen was given in common to all the animal creation, that simply was applied which set the machine in motion. No separate and independent organization was added, but a change took place in the man himself. The man became something, or reached a condition which before he had not attained. The verb “became” is defined by Webster, “to pass from one state to another; to enter into some state or condition, by a change from another state or condition, or by assuming or receiving new properties or qualities, additional matter or a new character.” And Gen. 2:7, is then cited as an illustration of this definition. But it will be seen that none of these will fit the popular idea of the superadded soul; for that is not held to be simply a change in Adam’s condition, or a new property or quality of his being, or an addition of matter, or a new character; but a separate and independent entity, capable, without the body, of a higher existence than with it. The boy becomes a man; the acorn, an oak; the egg, an eagle; the chrysalis, a butterfly; but the capabilities of the change all inhere in the object which experiences it. A superadded, independent soul could not have been put into man, and be said to have become that soul. Yet it is said of Adam, that he, on receiving the breath of life, became a living soul. An engine is put into a ship, and by its power propels it over the face of the deep; but the ship, by receiving the engine, does not become the engine, nor the engine the ship. No sophistry, even from the darkest depths of its alchemy, can bring up and attach to the word “become” a definition which will make it mean, as applied to any body, the addition of a distinct and separate organization to that body.

To the inquiry of Prof. Mattison, “If he was ‘a soul’ before, then how could he become such by the last act of creation,” it may be replied, The antithesis is not based upon the word soul, but upon the word living. This will become evident by trying to read the passage without this word: “And the Lord God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a soul.” That is not it. He became a living soul. He was a soul before, but not a living soul. To thus speak of a dead soul, may provoke from some a sneer; nevertheless, the Hebrews so used the terms. See Num. 6:6: “He shall come at no dead body,” on which Cruden says, “in Hebrew, dead soul.”

Kitto, in his Relig. Encyclopedia, under the term Adam, says:--

“And Jehovah God formed the man (Heb., the Adam) dust from the ground, and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living animal. Some of our readers may be surprised at our having translated nephesh chaiyah by living animal. There are good interpreters and preachers who, confiding in the common translation, living soul, have maintained that here is intimated a distinctive pre-eminence above the inferior animals, as possessed of an immaterial and immortal spirit. But, however true that distinction is, and supported by abundant argument from both philosophy and the Scriptures, we should be acting unfaithfully if we were to assume its being contained or implied in this passage.”

The “abundant argument from both philosophy and the Scriptures” for man’s immortal spirit, may be more difficult to find than many suppose. But this admission that nothing of the kind is implied in this passage, is a gratifying triumph of fair and candid criticism over what has been almost universally believed and taught.

But we are not left to our own reasoning on this point; for inspiration itself has given us a comment upon the passage in question; and certainly it is safe to let one inspired writer explain the words of another.

Paul, in 1 Cor. 15:44, and onward, is contrasting the first Adam with the second, and our present state with the future. He says: “There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body. And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul, the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.” Here Paul refers directly to the facts recorded in Gen. 2:7. In verse 47, he tells us the nature of this man that was made a living soul: “The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from Heaven.” In verse 49, he says, “And as we have borne the image of the earthy,” have been, like Adam, living souls, “we shall also bear the image of the heavenly,” when our bodies are fashioned like unto his glorious body. Phil. 3:21. In verses 50 and 53, he tells us why it is necessary that this should be done, and how it will be accomplished: “Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.”

Putting these declarations all together, what do we have? We have a very explicit statement that this first man, this living soul which Adam was made, was of the earth, earthy, did not bear the image of the heavenly in its freedom from a decaying nature, did not possess that incorruption without which we cannot inherit the kingdom of God, but was wholly mortal and corruptible. Would people allow these plain and weighty words of the apostle their true meaning upon this question, it would not only summarily arrest all controversy over the particular text under consideration, but leave small ground, at least from the teachings of the Scriptures, to argue for the natural immortality of man.

But the terms “living soul” like the breath of life, are applied to all orders of the animate creation, to beasts and reptiles, as well as to man. The Hebrew words are nephesh chaiyah; and these words are in the very first chapter of Genesis four times applied to the lower orders of animals: Gen. 1:20, 21, 24, 30. On Gen. 1:21, Dr. A. Clarke offers this comment:--

“Nephesh chaiyah; a general term to express all creatures endued with animal life, in any of its infinitely varied gradations, from the half-reasoning elephant down to the stupid potto, or lower still, to the polype, which seems equally to share the vegetable and animal life.”

This is a valuable comment on the meaning of these words. He would have greatly enhanced the utility of that information, if he had told us that the same words are applied to man in Gen. 2:7.

Prof. Bush, in his notes on this latter text, says:--

“The phrase living soul is in the foregoing narrative repeatedly applied to the inferior orders of animals which are not considered to be possessed of a ‘soul’ in the sense in which that term is applied to man. It would seem to mean the same, therefore, when spoken of man, that it does when spoken of beasts, viz.: an animated being, a creature possessed of life and sensation, and capable of performing all the physical functions by which animals are distinguished, as eating, drinking, walking, &c.... Indeed it may be remarked that the Scriptures generally afford much less explicit evidence of the existence of a sentient immaterial principle in man, capable of living and acting separate from the body, than is usually supposed.”

And there is nothing in the term “living” to imply that the life with which Adam was then endowed would continue forever; for these living souls are said to die. Rev. 16:3: “And every living soul died in the sea.” Whether this means men navigating its surface or the animals living in its waters, it is equally to the point as showing that that which is designated by the terms “living soul,” whatever it is, is subject to death.

Staggered by the fact (and unable to conceal it) that the terms “living soul” are applied to all animals, the advocates of man’s immortality then undertake to make the word “became” the pivot of their argument. Man “became” a living soul, but it is not said of the beasts that they became such; hence this must denote the addition of something to man which the animals did not receive. And in their anxiety to make this appear, they surreptitiously insert the idea that the animal life of man is derived from the dust of the ground, and that something of a higher nature was imparted to man by the breath of life which was breathed into him, and the living soul which he became. Thus Mr. Landis, in his work, “The Immortality of the Soul,”[^[A]] p. 141, says: “Hence something was to be added to the mere animal life derived from the dust of the ground.” Now Mr. L. ought to know, and knowing, ought to have the candor to admit, that no life at all is derived from the dust of the ground. All the life that Adam had was imparted by the breath of life which God breathed into his nostrils, which breath all breathing animals, no matter how they obtained it, possessed as well as he.

[A]. “The Immortality of the Soul and the Final Condition of the Wicked Carefully Considered. By Robert W. Landis. New York: Published by Carlton and Porter.” This is a work of 518 pages, and being issued under the patronage of the great Methodist Book Concern, we take it to be a representative work, and shall occasionally refer to its positions.

No emphasis can be attached to the word “became:” for everything that is called a living soul must by some process have become such. “Whatever was or is first became what it was or is.”

Take the case of Eve. She was formed of a rib of Adam, made of pre-existent matter. It is not said of her that God breathed into her nostrils the breath of life, or that she became a living soul; yet no one claims that her nature was essentially different from that of Adam with whom she was associated, as a fitting companion.

And it will be further seen that this word “became” can have no value in the argument, unless the absurd principle be first set up as truth, that whatever becomes anything must forever remain what it has become.

Defenders of the popular view, by such reasoning reduce their argument to its last degree of attenuation; but here its assumption becomes so transparent that it has no longer power to mislead, and needs no further reply.

CHAPTER VI.
WHAT IS SOUL? WHAT IS SPIRIT?

The discussion of Gen. 2:7 (as in the preceding chapter), brings directly before us for solution the question, What is meant by the terms soul and spirit, as applied to man? Some believers in unconditional immortality point triumphantly to the fact that the terms soul and spirit are used in reference to the human race, as though that settled the question, and placed an insuperable embargo upon all further discussion. This arises simply from their not looking into this matter with sufficient thoroughness to see that all we question in the case is the popular definition that is given to these terms. We do not deny that man has a soul and spirit; we only say that if our friends will show that the Bible anywhere attaches to them the meaning with which modern theology has invested them, they will supply what has thus far been a perpetual lack, and forever settle this controversy.

What do theologians tell us these terms signify? Buck, in his Theological Dictionary, says: “Soul, that vital, immaterial, active substance or principle in man whereby he perceives, remembers, reasons, and wills.” On spirit, he says: “An incorporeal being or intelligence; in which sense God is said to be a spirit, as are the angels and the human soul.” On man, he says: “The constituent and essential parts of man created by God are two: body and soul. The one was made out of dust; the other was breathed into him.” This soul, he further says, “is a spiritual substance;” and then, apparently feeling not exactly safe in calling that a substance which he claims to be immaterial, he bewilders it by saying “subsistence,” and then adds, “immaterial, immortal.”

This position strikes us as considerably open to criticism. On this definition of “soul,” how can we deny it to the lower animals? for they “perceive, remember, reason, and will.” And, if spirit means the “human soul,” the question arises, Has man two immortal elements in his nature? for the Bible applies both terms to him at the same time. Paul, to the Thessalonians, says: “And I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Does Paul here use tautology, by applying to man two terms meaning the same thing? That would be a serious charge against his inspiration. Then has man two immortal parts, soul and spirit both? This would evidently be overdoing the matter; for, where one is enough, two are a burden. And further, on this hypothesis, would these two immortal parts exist hereafter as two independent and separate beings?

This idea being preposterous, one question more remains: Which of these two is the immortal part? Is it the soul or the spirit? It cannot be both; and it matters not to us which is the one chosen. But we want to know what the decision is between the two. If they say that what we call the soul is the immortal part, then they give up such texts as Eccl. 12:7: “The spirit shall return to God who gave it;” and Luke 23:46, “Into thy hands I commend my spirit,” &c. On the other hand, if they claim that it is the spirit which is the immortal part, then they give up such texts as Gen. 35:18: “And it came to pass as her soul was in departing (for she died);” and 1 Kings 17:21, “Let this child’s soul come into him again.”

And, further, if the body and soul are both essential parts of man, as Mr. B. affirms, how can either exist as a distinct, conscious, and perfect being without the other?

Foreseeing these difficulties, Smith, in his Bible Dictionary, distinguishes between soul and spirit thus: “Soul (Heb. nephesh, Gr. ψυχὴ). One of three parts of which man was anciently believed to consist. The term ψυχὴ, is sometimes used to denote the vital principle, sometimes the sentient principle, or seat of the senses, desires, affections, appetites, passions. In the latter sense, it is distinguished from πνευμα [pneuma], the higher rational nature. This distinction appears in the Septuagint, and sometimes in the New Testament. 1 Thess. 5:23.” Then he quotes Olshausen on 1 Thess. 5:23, as saying: “For whilst the ψυχὴ [soul] denotes the lower region of the spiritual man,--comprises, therefore, the powers to which analogous ones are found in animal life also, as understanding, appetitive faculty, memory, fancy,--the πνευμα [pneuma] includes those capacities which constitute the true human life.”

So it seems that, according to these expositors, while the Hebrew nephesh, and Greek psuche, usually translated soul, denote powers common to all animal life, the Hebrew ruach, and the corresponding Greek pneuma, signify the higher powers, and consequently that part which is supposed to be immortal.

Now let us inquire what meaning the sacred writers attach to these terms. As already stated, the original words from which soul and spirit are translated, are, for soul, nephesh in the Hebrew, and psuche in the Greek, and for spirit, ruach in the Hebrew, and pneuma in the Greek. To these no one is at liberty to attach any arbitrary meaning. We must determine their signification by the sense in which they are used in the sacred record; and whoever goes beyond that, does violence to the word of God.

The word nephesh occurs 745 times in the Old Testament, and is translated by the term soul about 473 times. In every instance in the Old Testament where the word soul occurs, it is from nephesh, with the exception of Job 30:15, where it comes from n’dee-vah, and Isa. 57:16, where it is from n’shah-mah. But the mere use of the word soul determines nothing; for it cannot be claimed to signify an immortal part, until we somewhere find immortality affirmed of it.

Besides the word soul, nephesh, is translated life and lives, as in Gen. 1:20, 30, in all 118 times. It is translated person, as in Gen. 14:21, in all 29 times. It is translated mind, as in Gen. 23:8, in all 15 times. It is translated heart, as in Ex. 23:9, in all 15 times. It is translated body, or dead body, as in Num. 6:6, in all 11 times. It is translated will, as in Ps. 27:12, in all 4 times. It is translated appetite, as in Prov. 23:2, twice; lust, as in Ps. 78:18, twice; thing, as in Lev. 11:10, twice.

Besides the foregoing, it is rendered by the various pronouns, and by the words, breath, beast, fish, creature, ghost, pleasure, desire, &c., in all forty-three different ways. Nephesh is never rendered spirit.

This soul (nephesh) is represented as in danger of the grave, Ps. 49:14, 15; 89:88; Job 33:18, 20, 22; Isa. 38:17. It is also spoken of as liable to be destroyed, killed, &c., Gen. 17:14; Ex. 31:14; Josh. 10:30, 32, 35, 37, 39, &c.

Parkhurst, author of a Greek and a Hebrew Lexicon, says:--

“As a noun, neh-phesh hath been supposed to signify the spiritual part of man, or what we commonly call his soul. I must for myself confess that I can find no passage where it hath undoubtedly this meaning. Gen. 35:18; 1 Kings 17:21, 22[1 Kings 17:21, 22]; Ps. 16:10, seem fairest for this signification. But may not neh-phesh, in the three former passages, be most properly rendered breath, and in the last, a breathing, or animal frame?”

Taylor, author of a Hebrew Concordance, says that neh-phesh “signifies the animal life, or that principle by which every animal, according to its kind, lives. Gen. 1:20, 24, 30; Lev. 11:40. Which animal life, so far as we know anything of the manner of its existence, or so far as the Scriptures lead our thoughts, consists in the breath, Job. 41:21; 31:39, and in the blood. Lev. 17:11, 14.”

Gesenius, the standard Hebrew lexicographer, defines nephesh as follows:--

“1. Breath. 2. The vital spirit, as the Greek psuche, and Latin anima, through which the body lives, i. e., the principle of life manifested in the breath.” To this he also ascribes “whatever has respect to the sustenance of life by food and drink, and the contrary.” “3. The rational soul, mind, animus, as the seat of feelings, affections, and emotions. 4. Concr. living thing, animal in which is the nephesh, life.”

The word soul in the New Testament comes invariably from the Greek ψυχή (psuche); which word occurs 105 times. It is translated soul 58 times; life, 40 times; mind, 3 times; heart, twice; us, once; and you, once.

Spirit in the Old Testament is from two Hebrew words n’shah-mah and ruach.

The former occurs 24 times. It is 17 times rendered breath, 3 times, blast, twice, spirit, once, soul, and once, inspiration. It is defined by Gesenius, “Breath, spirit, spoken of the breath of God, i. e., a) the wind, b) the breath, breathing of his anger. 2. Breath, life of man and beasts. 3. The mind, the intellect. 4. Concr. living thing, animals.”

The latter, ruach, occurs 442 times. Spirit in every instance in the Old Testament is from this word, except Job 26:4, and Prov. 20:27; where it is from n’shah-mah. Besides spirit it is translated wind 97 times, breath, 28 times, smell, 8 times, mind, 6 times, blast, 4 times; also anger, courage, smell, air, &c., in all sixteen different ways.

Spirit in the New Testament is from the Greek, πνεῦμα (pneuma) in every instance. The original word occurs 385 times, and besides spirit is rendered ghost 92 times, wind, once, and life, once. Parkhurst in his Greek Lexicon, says: “It may be worth remarking that the leading sense of the old English word ghost is breath; ... that ghost is evidently of the same root with gust of wind; and that both these words are plain derivatives from the Hebrew, to move with violence; whence also gush, &c.”

Pneuma is defined by Robinson in his Greek Lexicon of the New Testament, to mean, primarily, “1. A breathing, breath, breath of air, air in motion. 2. The spirit of man, i. e., the vital spirit, life, soul, the principle of life residing in the breath breathed into men from God, and again returning to God.”

We now have before us the use and definitions of the words from which soul and spirit are translated. From the facts presented we learn that a large variety of meanings attaches to them; and that we are at liberty wherever they occur to give them that definition which the sense of the context requires. But when a certain meaning is attached to either of these words in one place, it is not saying that it has the same meaning in every other place.

By a dishonorable perversion on this point some have tried to hold up to ridicule the advocates of the view we here defend. Thus, when we read in Gen. 2:7, that Adam became a living soul, the sense demands, and the meaning of the word soul will warrant, that we then apply it to the whole person; Adam, as a complete being, was a living soul. But when we read in Gen. 35:18, “And it came to pass, as her soul was in departing, for she died,” we give the word, according to another of its definitions, a more limited signification, and apply it, with Parkhurst, to the breath of life.

But some have met us here in this manner: “Materialists tell us that soul means the whole man, then let us see how it will read in Gen. 35:18; ‘And it came to pass as the whole man was in departing; for she died.’” Or they will say, “Materialists tell us that soul means the breath; then let us try it in Gen. 2:7: ‘And Adam became a living breath.’”

Such a course, while it is no credit to their mental acumen, is utterly disastrous to all their claims of candor and honesty in their treatment of this important subject. While we are not at liberty to go beyond the latitude of meaning which is attached to the words soul and spirit, we are at liberty to use whatever definition the circumstances of the case require, varying of course in different passages. But in the whole list of definitions, and in the entire use of the words, we find nothing answering to that immaterial, independent, immortal part, capable of a conscious, intelligent, active existence out of the body as well as in, of which the popular religious teachers of the day endeavor to make these words the vehicle.

And now we would commend to the attention of the reader another stupendous fact, the bearing of which he cannot fail to appreciate. We want to know if this soul, or spirit, is immortal. The Hebrew and Greek words from which they are translated, occur in the Bible, as we have seen, seventeen hundred times. Surely, once at least in that long list we shall be told that the soul is immortal, if this is its high prerogative. Seventeen hundred times we inquire if the soul is once said to be immortal, or the spirit deathless. And the invariable and overwhelming response we meet is, Not Once! Nowhere, though used so many hundred times, is the soul said to be undying in its nature, or the spirit deathless. Strange and unaccountable fact, if immortality is an inseparable attribute of the soul and spirit!

An attempt is sometimes made to parry the force of this fact by saying that the immortality of the soul, like that of God, is taken for granted. We reply, The immortality of God is not taken for granted. Although this might be taken for granted if anything could be so taken, yet it is directly asserted that God is immortal. Let now the advocates of the soul’s natural immortality produce one text where it is said to have immortality, as God is said to have it, 1 Tim. 6:16, or where it is said to be immortal, as God is said to be, 1 Tim. 1:17, and the question is settled. But this cannot be done; and the ignoble shift of the taken-for-granted argument falls dead to the floor.

CHAPTER VII.
THE SPIRIT RETURNS TO GOD.

Ecclesiastes 12:7: “Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return to God who gave it.” It is natural for men to appeal first and most directly to those sources from which they expect the most efficient help. So the advocates of man’s natural immortality, when put to the task of showing what scriptures they regard as containing proof of their position, almost invariably make their first appeal to the text here quoted.

In the examination of this text, and all others of a like nature, let it ever be remembered that the question at issue is, Has man in his nature a constituent element, which is an independent entity, and which, when the body dies, keeps right on in uninterrupted consciousness, being capable of exercising in a still higher degree out of the body the functions of intelligence and activity which it manifested through the body, and destined, whether a subject of God’s favor, or of his threatened and merited wrath, to live so long as God himself exists.

Does this text assert anything of this kind? Does it state that from which even such an inference can be drawn? We invite the reader to go with us, while we endeavor to consider carefully what the text really teaches. Our opponents appeal to it as direct testimony. Let us see how far we can go with them.

1. Solomon, under a series of beautiful figures, speaks in Eccl. 12:1-7, of the lying down of man in death. Granted.

2. Dust, or the body, and spirit are spoken of as two distinct things. Granted.

3. At death, the spirit leaves the body. Granted.

4. The spirit is disposed of in a different manner from the body. Granted.

5. This spirit returns to God, and is therefore conscious, after the dissolution of the body. Not granted. Where is the proof of this? Here our paths begin to diverge from each other. But how could it return to God if it was not conscious? Answer: In the manner Job describes. “If he [God] set his heart upon man, if he gather unto himself his spirit and his breath, all flesh shall perish together, and man shall turn again to dust.” Job 34:14, 15. This text speaks of God’s gathering to himself the “breath” of man; something which no one supposes to be capable of a separate conscious existence. Over against this proposition we are compelled to mark, Assumption.

6. This spirit is therefore to exist forever. This conclusion also we fail to see, either expressed, or even in the remotest manner, implied. Thus the vital points in the evidence are wholly assumed.

But if the spirit here does not mean what it is popularly supposed to mean, what is its signification? What is it that returns to God? It will be noticed that it is something which God “gave” to man. And Solomon introduces it in a familiar manner, as if alluding to something already recorded and well understood. He makes evident reference to the creation of man in the beginning. His body was formed of the dust; and in addition to this, what did God do for man or give unto him? He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. This is the only spirit that is distinctly spoken of as having been given by God to man. No one claims that this, like the body, was from the dust, or returns to dust; but it does not therefore follow that it is conscious or immortal.

Landis, p. 133, falls into this wrong method of reasoning. He says:--

“If the soul were mortal, it too would be given up to the dust, it would return also to the earth. But God affirms that it does not return to the earth; and therefore it is distinct from the mortal and perishable part of man.”

The breath of life is distinct from the body, and did not come from the dust of the ground; but to say that it can exist in a conscious state independent of the body, and that it must live forever, is groundless assumption.

If spirit here means “the breath of life,” how, or in what sense, does it return to God? Landis, p. 150, thus falsely treats this point also: “How can the air we breathe,” he asks, “return to God?” Between the breath of life as imparted to man by God, vitalizing the animal frame, and air considered simply as an element, we apprehend there is a broad distinction. Solomon is showing the dissolution of man by tracing back the steps taken in his formation. The breath of life was breathed into Adam in the beginning; by which he became a living soul. That is withdrawn from man, and as a consequence he becomes inanimate. Then the body, deprived of its vitalizing principle, having been formed of the dust, goes back to dust again.

That the breath of life came from God to man, none will deny. Do they ask how it returns to him? Tell us how it came from him, and we will tell how it returns. In the same sense in which God gave it to man, in that sense it returns to him. That is all there is of it. The explanation is perfectly simple, because one division of the problem is comprehended just as easily as the other. It is an easy thing to turn off with a flippant sneer an explanation which if allowed to stand, takes the very breath of life out of a cherished theory.

But there is a grave objection lying against the popular exposition of this text, which must not pass unnoticed. It is involved in the question, What was the state or condition of this spirit before God gave it to man? Was it an independent, conscious, and intelligent being, before it was put into Adam, as it is claimed that it was after Adam got through with it, and it returned to God? Solomon evidently designs to state respecting all the elements of which man is composed, as is expressly stated of the body, that they resume the original condition in which they were, before they came together to form the component parts of man. We know it is argued that the expression respecting the body, that it returns to the dust “as it was,” is good ground for an inference that the spirit returns not as it was. Every principle of logic requires the very opposite conclusion. For, having set the mind upon that idea of sameness of condition, and then referring us to the source from whence the spirit came, and stating that it goes back to that source, the language is as good as an affirmation that it goes back to its original condition also, and must be so understood unless an express affirmation is made to the contrary. The question is therefore pertinent, Was this spirit before it came into man, a conscious being, as it is claimed to be after it leaves him? In other words, have we all had a conscious pre-existence? Is the mystery of our Lord’s incarnation repeated in every member of the human race? Yes! if popular theologians rightly explain this text. And the more daring or reckless spirits among them, seeing the logical sequence of their reasoning, boldly avow this position.

Mr. Landis (to whom we make occasional reference as an exponent of the popular theory) recoils at the idea of pre-existence, and claims (p. 147) that the spirit does not return as it was, but acquires “a moral character, and so is changed from what it was when first created and given to man”! Oh! then, when Adam’s body was formed of the dust of the ground a spirit was created (from what?) and put into it. Where did he learn this? To what new revelation has he had access to become acquainted with so remarkable a fact? Or whence derives he his authority to manufacture statements of this kind? His soul swells with indignation over some whom he styles materialists, and whom he accuses of manufacturing scripture. Thou that sayest a man should not, dost thou? Nothing is said of the “creation of a spirit” in connection with the formation of Adam’s body. The body having been formed, God, by an agency, not created for the purpose, but already existing with himself, endowed it with life, and Adam became a living soul.

Having thus artfully introduced the idea that the spirit was created for the occasion, Mr. L. takes up this reasoning which shows that if the spirit is conscious after leaving the body, it must have been before it entered it, and, applying to it a term doubtless suggested by his own feelings in view of the assumptions to which he was himself obliged to resort, calls it silly. Nevertheless here is the rock on which their exposition of this text inevitably and hopelessly founders.

There is another consideration not without its bearing on this question. The words, “And the spirit shall return to God who gave it,” are spoken promiscuously of all mankind. They apply alike to the righteous and wicked. If the spirit survives the death of the body, the spirits of the righteous would, as a natural consequence, ascend to God, in whose presence they are promised fullness of joy. But do the spirits of the wicked go to God also? For what purpose? The immediate destination usually assigned to them is the lake of fire. Is it said that they first go to God to be judged? Then we ask, Where does the Bible once affirm that a person is judged when he dies? On the contrary, the Scriptures invariably place the Judgment in the future, and assert in the most explicit terms that God has appointed a day for that purpose. Acts 17:31.

Thus the Bible doctrine of the Judgment is directly contradicted by this view. According to the Scriptures no man has yet received his final judgment; yet, according to the view under examination, the spirits of all who have ever died, good and bad, righteous and wicked, have gone to God. For what purpose have the spirits of the wicked gone to him? Are they there still? Does God so deal with rebels against his government--give them Heaven from one to six thousand years, more or less, and hell afterward? Away with a view which introduces such inconsistencies into God’s dealings with his creatures.

How infinitely preferable that view which alone the record warrants; that is, that the spirit that returns to God who gave it is the breath of life, that agency by which God vivifies and sustains these physical frames; since this, so far as the record goes, is just what God did give to man in the beginning, since the definition of the term sustains such an application, since this spirit, without doing violence to either thought or language, can return to God in the same sense in which it came from him, and, above all, since this view harmonizes all the record, and avoids those inconsistencies and contradictions in which we find ourselves inevitably involved the very moment we undertake to make the spirit mean a separate entity, conscious in death and immortal in its nature.

CHAPTER VIII.
THE FORMATION OF THE SPIRIT.

In a search for testimony relative to the nature of man, with the purpose of ascertaining whether or not he is immortal, those texts first demand attention which are claimed as proof that he is above and beyond the power of death. Zech. 12:1, is introduced as positive testimony on this side of the question:

“The burden of the word of the Lord for Israel, saith the Lord, which stretcheth forth the heavens and layeth the foundations of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him.”

With an immense flourish this text is introduced by Mr. Landis, p. 152; and with an air of triumph he adds that materialists are in the habit of passing it in silence. We think we can answer for them that they have seen in it nothing to answer, and hence have declined to spend their time beating the air. As to the nature of the spirit which God forms in man, its characteristics and attributes, this text affirms nothing. Above all, respecting the main inquiry, Is this spirit immortal? the text is entirely silent. Why then is it introduced? Because it contains the word spirit. But, as has been shown (chapter vi), nothing is proved by the mere use of the words soul and spirit, till some affirmation can be found in the Scriptures that these terms signify an independent entity, which has the power of uninterrupted consciousness, and the endowment of immortality. For men to take these terms and give them definitions and clothe them with attributes which are the offspring of pagan philosophy, or figments of their own imagination, and then claim that because the Bible uses these terms it sustains their views, is to us, at least, a very unsatisfactory method of settling this question. But, from the persistency with which it is followed by those of the opposite view, one might conclude that it is the only way they have of sustaining their position.

God formeth the spirit of man within him. So the text asserts. The word, form, is in the Septuagint, plasso. The definition of this word, as given by Liddell and Scott, is, “To form, mould, shape, Lat. fingere, strictly used of the artist who works in soft substances, such as earth, clay, wax.” The word, then, signifies giving shape and form to something already in existence; for the artist does not create his clay, wax, &c., but only changes its form. The second definition seems, however, to be more applicable to the case in hand. Thus, “II. generally, to bring into shape or form, πλ. τὴν ψυχὴν τὸ σῶμα, to mould and form the mind or body by care, diet, and exercise.” Thus God makes man the crown of creation by forming in him (through a superior organization of the brain) an intellectual or mental nature, and we can still further form or mold it, by care and cultivation. There is nothing here to favor the idea of the creation of a separate immaterial and immortal entity, and its insertion into the human frame.

This text is illustrated by Job 32:8: “But there is a spirit in man; and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding;” not “giveth it [the spirit] understanding,” as we heard an immaterialist in debate not long since read it; but “giveth them [the men] understanding.” That is, men are endowed with a superior mental organization; and by means of that God gives them understanding.

Since, however, Zech. 12:1, is used by immaterialists, to prove that souls are specially created, it raises the question, which may as well be considered in this connection as any other, whence the spirit, whatever it is, is derived. In the text under consideration, the present tense is evidently used for the past; and hence it might be read, “The burden of the word of the Lord ... which stretched forth the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth, and formed the spirit of man within him.” If now this means the creation of an immortal entity to be added to man, called his spirit, it applies only to the first man, the man formed at the creation of the world. The question then remains, How do all succeeding members of the human race, how do we, get an immortal spirit? Is it by a special act of creation on the part of God, or is it by generation from father to son? Has God, for every member of the human race since Adam, by special act created a soul or spirit? They who say he has, contradict Gen. 2:2, which declares that all God’s work of creation, so far as it pertains to this world, was finished in the first week of time. If this testimony is true, it is certain that God has not been at work ever since creating human souls as fast as bodies were brought into existence to need them, the greater part of the time thousands of them every day.

Has God thus made himself the servant of the human race, to wait upon their will, caprice, and passions? for how many of the inhabitants of this earth are the offspring of the foulest iniquity and the most unbridled lust! Does God hold himself in readiness to create souls which must come from his hand immaculate and pure, to be thrust into such vile tenements, at the bidding of godless lust? The reader will pardon the irreverence of the question, for the sake of an exposure of the absurdity of that theory which prompts it.

But if we say that the soul is transmitted with the body, then what becomes of its incorruptibility and immortality? for “that which is born of the flesh is flesh.” John 3:6. And Peter says (1 Pet. 1:23-25): “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God which liveth and abideth forever. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away; but the word of the Lord endureth forever.”

There could hardly be a plainer testimony that man as a whole is mortal and perishable. He is born of corruptible seed. But more than this, it is added, “All flesh is as grass.” Should it be said that this means simply the body, we reply that the term flesh is frequently used in the New Testament to signify the whole man. Thus, Rom. 3:20: “By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified.” Paul does not here talk about the justification of bones, sinews, nerves and muscles; he refers to the whole responsible man. In the same sense the term is used in many other passages. But Peter himself, in the passage just quoted, cuts off its application exclusively to the body; for after saying that “all flesh is as grass,” he continues, “and all the glory of man as the flower of grass.” The glory of man must include all that there is noble and exalted about his nature. If the soul is the highest and most godlike part of man, it is included in this glory; but lo! it is all like the flower of the grass, transitory and perishable.

The word mortal, which means liable to death, occurs five times in our English version, and in every instance is used to describe the nature of the real man. Rom. 6:12; 8:11; 1 Cor. 15:53, 54; 2 Cor. 4:11. It occurs in the original in one other instance (2 Cor. 5:4) where it is rendered “mortality.”

The texts usually relied on to prove that souls are immediately created are Eccl. 12:7; Isa. 57:16; Zech. 12:1. The first of these was examined in the last chapter. The word translated “form” in the last of these passages, as shown in this present chapter, is not a word that signifies to create, but only to put into form, mold, and fashion. Isa. 57:16, speaks of the souls which God has made. But there are numerous other texts, as Job 10:8-11; Isa. 44:2; 64:8; Jer. 1:5, &c., which speak in the same manner of the body. But if such expressions can be used with respect to the body, produced by the natural process of generation, the same expression with reference to the soul contains no proof that that is not also transmitted with the body.

God said to our first parents, and the commission was repeated to Noah after the flood, “Be fruitful and multiply.” Multiply what? Themselves, of course. Did that mean that they should multiply bodies, and God would multiply souls to fit them? Nothing of the kind; but they were to multiply beings having all the characteristics, endowments, and attributes of themselves. So Adam, Gen. 5:3, “begat a son in his own likeness, after his image, and called his name Seth.” This son was like Adam in all respects, having all the natures that Adam possessed; and that which was begotten by Adam was called Seth. But according to the doctrine of creationism, Adam begat only a body, and God created a soul, which is the real man, and called his name Seth, and put it into that body. Neither this text nor any other gives countenance to any such absurdity.

Some prominent theologians, both ancient and modern, have adopted the doctrine of traduction as opposed to that of creationism, believing the latter to be contrary to philosophy and revelation, but the former to be in harmony with both. In Wesley’s Journal, Vol. v., p. 10, is found the following entry:--

“I read and abridged an old work on the origin of the soul. I never before saw anything on the subject so satisfactory. I think the author proves to a demonstration that God has enabled man, as all other creatures, to propagate his whole specie, consisting of soul and body.”

The testimony of Richard Watson (Institutes, pp. 362, 3) is equally explicit. He says:--

“A question as to the transmission of this corruption of nature from parents to children has been debated among those who, nevertheless, admit the fact; some contending that the soul is ex traduce; others that it is by immediate creation. It is certain that, as to the metaphysical part of this question, we can come to no satisfactory conclusion. The Scriptures, however, appear to be more in favor of traduction. ‘Adam begat a son in his own likeness.’ ‘That which is born of the flesh is flesh,’ which refers certainly to the soul as well as to the body.... The tenet of the soul’s descent appears to have most countenance from the language of Scripture, and it is no small confirmation of it, that when God designed to incarnate his own Son, he stepped out of the ordinary course, and formed a sinless human nature immediately by the power of the Holy Ghost.”

The evidence is thus rendered conclusive from both reason and Scripture, that the soul is transmitted through the process of generation with the body. What then, we ask again, becomes of its immortality? For “that which is born of the flesh is flesh,” and mortality cannot generate itself to a higher plane and beget immortality. This is not saying that mind is matter; for the results of organization are not to be confounded with the matter of which the organization is composed.

CHAPTER IX.
WHO KNOWETH?

With these words Solomon introduces, in Eccl. 3:21, a very important question respecting the spirit of man. He says: “Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?” Deeming this a good foundation, the advocates of natural immortality proceed to build thereon. They take it to be, first, a positive declaration that the spirit of man does go up, and the spirit of the beast downward to the earth. Then the superstructure is easily erected: Thus, Solomon must have believed that man had a spirit capable of a separate and conscious existence in death; and this spirit, in the hour of dissolution, ascends up on high, and goes into the presence of God. It therefore survives the stroke of death, and is consequently immortal.

Here they rest their argument; but we would like to have them proceed; for the text speaks of the spirit of the beast, which must also be disposed of. If the spirit of man, because it separates from him and goes up, is conscious, is not the spirit of the beast, because it separates from it and goes down, conscious also? There is nothing in the man’s spirit going up which can by any means show it to be conscious, any more than there is in the spirit of the beast going down, to show it to be conscious. But, if the spirit of the beast survives the stroke of death, it has just as much immortality as that of man. This line of argument, therefore, proves too much, and must be abandoned.

But is not the word spirit as applied to the beast a different word in the original from the one translated spirit and applied to man? No; they are both from the same original word; and that word is ruach, the word from which spirit is translated in the Old Testament in every instance with two exceptions. The beast has the same spirit that man has.

Landis (p. 146) feels the weight of the stunning blow which this fact gives to the popular view, and endeavors to parry its force by the following desperate resort: He says that Solomon is here describing the state of doubt and perplexity through which he had formerly passed; and, to use Mr. L.’s own words, “in this perplexity he attributes to both man and beast a ruach.” But he says that Solomon got over this state of doubt and uncertainty, and “never again attributed a ruach to beasts.” What we regard as the Bible view of man’s nature is not unfrequently denominated infidelity by the popular theologians of the present day; but it strikes us as rather a bold position to go back and accuse the sacred writers of laboring under a spirit of infidelity when they penned these sentiments.

But if we take Solomon’s words to be a declaration that the spirit of man does go up, his question, even then, would imply a strong affirmation that we are ignorant of its essential qualities. Who knoweth this spirit? Who can tell its nature? Who can describe its inherent characteristics? Who can tell how long it shall continue to exist? On these vital points, the text is entirely silent, granting all that is claimed for it.

But, further, if this text asserts that the spirit of man goes up to God, it will be noticed that it is spoken promiscuously of all mankind. Then the same queries would arise respecting the spirits of the wicked, for what purpose they go to God, and the same objections would lie against that view that were stated in the examination of Eccl. 12:7, in chapter vii.

To arrive, however, at the correct meaning of Eccl. 3:21, a brief examination of the context is necessary. In verse 18, Solomon expresses a desire that the sons of men may see that they themselves are beasts. Not that he intended to be understood that man is in no respect superior to a beast; for no one, inspired or not, above the level of an idiot, would make such an assertion, in view of man’s more perfect organization, his reasoning faculties, and, above all, his future prospects, if righteous. He simply means, as plainly expressed in the next verse, that in one respect, namely, their dissolution in death, man possesses no superiority over the other orders of animated existence. “For,” he says, “that which befalleth the sons of men, befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them; as the one dieth [here is the point of similarity], so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath [ruach, the same word that is rendered spirit in verse 21]; so that a man [in this respect] hath no pre-eminence above a beast. All go unto one place [is that place Heaven? and is this a declaration that all, men and beasts alike, go there?] all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.”

Thus definite and positive is the teaching of Solomon that in respect to their life here upon earth, and their condition in death, men and beasts are exactly alike; and now can we suppose that, after having thus clearly expressed his views of this matter, he proceeds in the very next sentence to contradict it all, and assert that in death there is a difference between men and beasts, that men do have a pre-eminence, that all do not go to one place, that the spirit of man goes up conscious to God, and the spirit of the beast goes down to perish in the earth? This would be to make the wisest man that ever lived, the most stupid reasoner that ever put pen to paper.

How, then, is his language in verse 21 to be understood? Answer: Understand it as a question whether the spirit of man goes up, and the spirit of the beast down, as some asserted in opposition to the views which he taught. John Milton, author of Paradise Lost, so translates it: “Who knoweth the spirit of man [an sursum ascendat] whether it goeth upward?” &c. The Douay Bible renders the passage thus: “Who knoweth if the spirit of the children of Adam ascend upward, and if the spirit of the beasts descend downward?” The Septuagint, the Vulgate, the Chaldee Paraphrase, the Syriac, and the German of Luther, give the same reading.

This puts the matter in quite a different light, and saves Solomon from self-contradiction; but, alas for the immaterialist! it completely overturns the structure of immortality built thereon.

The notion prevailed in the heathen world that man’s spirit ascended up to be with the gods, but the spirit of the beast went down to the earth. It was the old lesson taught by that unreliable character. in Eden, “Ye shall not surely die,” but “ye shall be as gods.” Solomon contradicts this by stating the truth in the case, that death reduces man and beast alike to one common condition. Then he asks, Who knows that the opposite heathen doctrine is true, that the spirit of man goes up, and that of the beast down? He had declared that they all went to one place, in accordance with God’s original sentence, “Thou shalt surely die;” now he calls for evidence, if there be any, to show that the opposite doctrine is true. Thus he smites to the ground this pagan notion by putting it to the proof of its claims, for which no proof exists.

There is another class of expressions respecting the word spirit, which properly come under consideration at this point. The first is Ps. 31:5, where David says: “Into thine hand I commit my spirit.” Our Lord used similar language, perhaps borrowed from this expression of David, when, expiring on the cross, he said, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.” Luke 23:46. And Stephen, the martyr, in the same line of thought, put up this expiring prayer: “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Acts 7:59. What was it which David and our Lord wished to commit into the hands of God, and Stephen, into the hands of Christ? A conscious entity it is claimed, the living and immortal part of man; for nothing less could properly be committed to God. Thus Mr. Landis (p. 131) asks: “What was it then? The mere life which passed into nonentity at death? And can any one suppose they would have commended to God a nonentity? This would be a shameless trifling with sacred things.” But David, on one occasion (1 Sam. 26:24), prayed that his life might be much set by, or be precious, in the eyes of the Lord. That which is precious in his sight, it seems might very properly be commended to his keeping, especially when passing, for his sake, out of our immediate control. And in the very psalm (31) in which he commits his spirit to God, he does it in view of the fact that his enemies had “devised to take away his life.” Verse 13.

It is a fact that the same or similar acts are spoken of frequently as done in reference to the life that are said to be done in reference to the spirit. Can a person commit his spirit to God? So he can commit to him the preservation of his life. Thus David says, Ps. 64:1: “Preserve my life.” What! Mr. Landis would exclaim, preserve a nonentity? Jonah prayed (4:3), “O Lord, take, I beseech thee, my life from me.” Christ says, John 10:15: “I lay down my life for the sheep;” and in John 13:38, he asks Peter, “Wilt thou lay down thy life for my sake?”

Thus our life is something that we can commit to another for safe keeping; it can be taken away from us; we can give it up, or lay it down. Is it, therefore, a distinct entity, conscious in death? If it is not, then equivalent expressions applied to the spirit do not prove that to be conscious in death and immortal; for they prove the same in the one case as in the other; and whatever they fail to prove in the one case, they fail to prove also in the other.

But if the spirit, as is claimed, lives right along after death, just as conscious as before, and a hundred-fold more active, capable, intelligent, and free, where would be the propriety of committing it to God in the hour of death, any more than at any point during its earthly existence? There would be none whatever. Entering upon that permanent higher life, it would be much more capable of caring for itself than in this earthly condition. The expression bears upon its very face evidence that those who used it desired to commit something into the care of their Maker which was about to pass out of their possession; to commit something into his hands for safe keeping until they should be brought back from the state of unconsciousness and inactivity into which they were then falling. And what was that? It was what they were then losing, namely, their life, their pneuma, which Robinson defines as meaning, among other things, “The principle of life residing in the breath, breathed into man from God, and again returning to God.” And when the life is thus given up to God by his people, where is it? “Hid with Christ in God.” Col. 3:3. And[God.” Col. 3:3. And] when will the believer receive it again? “When[“When] Christ who is our life shall appear.” Verse 4. Then Stephen will receive from his Lord that which while dying he besought him to receive. Then they who for Christ’s sake have lost their life (not merely their bodies while their life continued right on) will have that life restored to them again.

CHAPTER X.
THE SPIRITS OF JUST MEN MADE PERFECT.

“But ye are come,” says Paul, “unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the Heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn which are written in Heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel.” Heb. 12:22-24.

With a great show of confidence, either pretended or real, the advocates of man’s immortality bring forward this text in proof of their position. That portion of the forgoing quotation upon which they hang their theory is the expression, “the spirits of just men made perfect,” which they take to be both a declaration and proof thereof, that the spirits of men are released by death, and thereupon are made perfect or glorified in the presence of God in Heaven. A little further examination of the language will, we think, show that such an assertion is not made in the text and that even such an inference cannot justly be drawn.

That Paul is here contrasting the blessings and privileges enjoyed by believers under the gospel dispensation with those possessed by the Jews under the former dispensation, will probably not be questioned on either side. Ye are not come to the mount that might be touched [Mount Sinai] and the sound of a trumpet, &c., that is, to that system of types and ceremonies instituted through Moses at Sinai, of which an outward priesthood were the ministers, and Old Jerusalem the representative city; but ye are come to Mount Zion, to the New Jerusalem, to Jesus, and to his better sacrifice. These things to which we are come are the superior blessings of the gospel, over what was enjoyed under the former dispensation. But where or how does the fact come in, as one of these blessings, that man has a spirit which is conscious in death, and is made perfect by the dissolution of the body? It will be seen that if this be a fact, it is brought in, at best, only incidentally. There is no proof of it in the expression, “spirits of just men made perfect,” in itself considered; for they could be made perfect at some future time, without supposing them conscious from death to the resurrection. The only proof that can here be found, then, lies in the fact that we are said to have come to these spirits. This is supposed to prove that they must be spirits out of the body, and that they must also be conscious. Then we inquire, How do we come to the spirits of just men made perfect, and what is meant by the expression?

It is not difficult to determine how we come to all the other objects mentioned by Paul in the three verses quoted; but how we come to the spirits of just men made perfect, according to the popular view of that expression, is not so clear. If we mistake not, the common view will have to be modified, or the explanation remain ungiven.

Let us see: “Ye are come [or, putting it in the first person, since Paul brings these to view as present blessings all through the gospel dispensation, we are come] unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.” That is, we in this dispensation no longer look to Old Jerusalem as the center of our worship, but we look above, to the New Jerusalem, where the sanctuary and Priest of this dispensation are. In this sense we are come to them.

“And to an innumerable company of angels.” Angels are the assistants of our Lord in his work, who now mediates for his people individually. Dan. 7:10. They are sent forth to minister to those who shall be heirs of salvation. Heb. 1:14. They are therefore more intimately concerned in the believer’s welfare in this dispensation than in the old. We have thus come to their presence and ministration.

“To the general assembly and church of the firstborn which are written in Heaven.” That is, we have now come to the time when believers of whatever nationality, whose names are recorded in the Lamb’s book of life in Heaven, constitute a general assembly, or compose one church. We do not now look to Jewish genealogies to find the people of God, but we look to the record in Heaven. And God now takes his people into covenant relation with himself as individuals, and not as a nation. Thus we are come in this dispensation to the general assembly, the church of the firstborn.

“And to God the Judge of all.” Directly, through the mediation of his Son, we draw near to God. Passing over for a time the expression under discussion, the spirits of just men made perfect, we read on:--

“And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant.” We now come to Jesus, the real mediator, instead of to the typical priesthood of the former dispensation.

“And to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel.” That is, there is now ministered for us the blood of Jesus, the better sacrifice, which takes away from us sin in fact, instead of the blood of beasts, which took it away only in figure.

It can readily be seen how we come to all these things under this dispensation; how these are all privileges and blessings under the gospel, beyond what was enjoyed in the former dispensation. But now, if the spirits of just men made perfect mean disembodied spirits in the popular sense, how do we come to these as a gospel blessing? This is what we would like to have our friends tell us. In what respect is our relation to our dead friends, the supposed spirits of the departed, changed by the gospel? If there is any sense in which we may be said to have come to these, we would like to know it.

But again, when do we come into closest contact with a man’s spirit? Is it when that spirit is disembodied, and has gone far away to dwell in the presence of God, and is to have no more to do forever with anything that is done under the sun? Eccl. 9:6. Is it not rather when the spirit of a man through the eyes of that man looks upon us, through his mouth speaks to us, and through his hands handles us? Outside the hell-doomed hosts of spiritualists, will any one say that we enjoy more intimate relations with a spirit when it is out of the body than we do while it is in the body? A consideration of this point must convince any one that the idea of coming to the spirits of just men made perfect cannot possibly be applied to spirits out of the body.

It will be noticed further that the text does not speak of spirits made perfect, but of men made perfect. The Greek (και πνεύμασι δικαίων τετελειωμένων) shows that the participle, “made perfect,” agrees with “the just,” or “just men,” and not with “spirits.” When, then, we inquire, are men made perfect? There is a certain sense in which they are made perfect in this life through the justification of the blood of Christ, and sanctification of his Spirit; and they are made perfect in an absolute sense, as in Heb. 11:40, when they experience the final glorification, and their vile bodies are made like unto Christ’s most glorious body. Phil. 3:21.

If it is said that the text refers to this latter perfection, then it is placed beyond the resurrection, and affords no proof of a conscious disembodied spirit. If it refers to the former, then it applies to persons still in this state, and not in death. To one or the other it must refer; and apply it which way we may, it does not bring to view a spirit conscious in death. Therefore it fails entirely to prove the point in favor of which our friends produce it.

In harmony with the context, we apply it to the present state, to men in this life, to a blessing peculiar to the gospel, to the justification and sanctification which the believer now enjoys through Christ. And in this sense we see how we come to it, as to all the other things mentioned by Paul. We come to the enjoyment of this blessing ourselves, and to communion and fellowship with those who are also in possession of it.

Finally, to show that this not a view devised to meet any exigency of our position, we will bring to its support a name which with all will have great weight, and with many will be final authority. Dr. Adam Clarke, on this passage, says:--

“In several parts of this epistle [to the Hebrews], τελειος, the just man, signifies one who has a full knowledge of the Christian system, who is justified and saved by Christ Jesus; and τετελειωμενοι are the adult Christians, who are opposed to the νεπιοι or babes in knowledge and grace. See chap. 5:12-14; 8:11; Gal. 4:1-3. The spirits of just men made perfect, or the righteous perfect, are the full-grown Christians; those who are justified by the blood and sanctified by the Spirit of Christ. Being come to such implies that spiritual union which the disciples of Christ have with each other, and which they possess how far soever separate; for they are all joined in one Spirit, Eph. 2:18; they are in the unity of the Spirit, Eph. 4:3, 4; and of one soul, Acts 4:32. This is a unity which was never possessed even by the Jews themselves, in their best state; it is peculiar to real Christianity; as to nominal Christianity, wars and desolations between man and his fellows are quite consistent with its spirit.”

The reader is also referred to Dr. C.’s note at the end of Heb. 12.

CHAPTER XI.
THE SPIRITS IN PRISON.

“For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit; by which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls, were saved by water.” 1 Pet. 3:18-20.

The advocates of natural immortality are not long in finding their way to this passage. Here, it is claimed, are spirits brought to view, out of the body; for they were the spirits of the antediluvians: and they were conscious and intelligent; for they could listen to the preaching of Christ, who, by his conscious spirit, while his body lay in the grave, went and preached to them.

Let us see just what conclusions the popular interpretation of this passage involves, that we may test their claims by the Scriptures. 1. The spirits were the spirits of wicked men; for they were disobedient in the days of Noah, and perished in the flood. 2. They were consequently in their place of punishment, the place to which popular theology assigns all such spirits immediately on their passing from this state of existence. 3. The spirit of Christ went into hell to preach to them. These are the facts that are to be cleared of improbabilities, and harmonized with the Scriptures, before the passage can be made available for the popular view.

But the bare suggestion of so singular a transaction as Christ’s going to preach to these spirits, immediately gives rise to the query for what purpose Christ should take pains to go down into hell, to preach to damned spirits there; and what message he could possibly bear to them. The day of their probation was past; they could not be helped by any gospel message; then why preach to them? Would Christ go to taunt them by describing before them blessings which they could never receive, or raising in their bosoms hopes of a release from damnation, which he never designed to grant?

These considerations fall like a mighty avalanche across the way of the common interpretation. The thought is felt to be almost an insuperable objection, and many are the shifts devised to get around it. One thinks that the word preached does not necessarily mean to preach the gospel, notwithstanding almost every instance of the use of the word in the New Testament describes the preaching of the gospel by Christ or his apostles; but that Christ went there to announce to them that his sufferings had been accomplished, and the prophecies concerning him fulfilled. But what object could there be in that? How would that affect their condition? Was it to add poignancy to their pain by rendering their misery doubly sure? And were there not devils enough in hell to perform that work, without making it necessary that Christ should perform such a ghostly task, and that, too, right between those points of time when he laid down his life for our sins and was raised again for our justification?

Another thinks these were the spirits of such as repented during the forty days’ rain of the flood; that they were with the saved in Paradise, a department of the under world where the spirits of the good are kept (the elysium, in fact, of ancient heathen mythology), but that they “still felt uneasy on account of having perished [that is, lost their bodies] under a divine judgment,” and “were now assured by Jesus that their repentance had been accepted.”

Such resorts show the desperate extremities to which the popular exposition of this passage is driven.

Others frankly acknowledge that they cannot tell what, nor for what purpose, Christ preached to the lost in hell. So Landis, p. 236. But he says it makes no difference if we cannot tell what he preached nor why he preached, since we have the assurance that he did go there and preach. Profound conclusion! Would it not be better, since we have the assurance that he preached, to conclude that he preached at a time when preaching could benefit them, rather than at a time when we know that it could not profit them, and there could be no occasion for it whatever?

The whole issue thus turns on the question, When was this work of preaching performed? Some will say, “While they were in prison, and that means the state of death, and shows that the dead are conscious and can be preached to.” Then, we reply, the dead also can be benefited by preaching, and led to repentance; and the doctrine of purgatory springs in full blossom into our creed.

But does the text affirm that the preaching was done to these spirits while they were in prison? May it not be that the preaching was done at some previous time to persons who were, when Peter wrote, in prison, or, if you please, in a state of death? So it would be true that the spirits were in prison when Peter makes mention of them, and yet the preaching might have been done to them at a former period, while they were still in the flesh and could be benefited by it. This is the view taken of the passage by Dr. Clarke. He says:--

“He went and preached] By the ministry of Noah one hundred and twenty years.”

Thus he places Christ’s going and preaching by his Spirit in the days of Noah, and not during the time his body lay in the grave.

Again, he says:--

“The word πνευμασι, spirits, is supposed to render this view of the subject improbable, because this must mean disembodied spirits; but this certainly does not follow; for the spirits of just men made perfect, Heb. 12:23, certainly means righteous men, and men still in the church militant; and the Father of spirits, Heb. 12:9, means men still in the body; and the God of the spirits of all flesh, Num. 16:22, and 27:16, means men, not in a disembodied state.”

The preaching was certainly to the antediluvians. But why should Christ single out that class to preach to, about twenty-four hundred years afterward, in hell? The whole idea is forced, unnatural, and absurd. The preaching that was given to them was through Noah, who, by the power of the Holy Ghost (1 Pet. 1:12), delivered to them the message of warning. Let this be the preaching referred to, and all is harmonious and clear; and this interpretation the construction of the original demands; for the word rendered in our version, “were disobedient,” is simply the aorist participle; and the dependent sentence, “when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah,” limits the verb “preached” rather than the participle. The whole passage might be translated thus: “In which also, having gone to the spirits in prison, he preached to the then disobedient ones, when once [or at the time when] the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah.”

But how were they in prison? In the same sense in which persons in error and darkness are said to be in prison. Isa. 42:7: “To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.” Also Isa. 61:1: “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound.” Christ himself declared, Luke 4:18-21, that this scripture was fulfilled in his mission to those here on earth who sat in darkness and error, and under the dominion of sin. So the antediluvians were shut up under the sentence of condemnation. Their days were limited to a hundred and twenty years; and their only way of escape from impending destruction was through the preaching of Noah.

So much with reference to the spirits to whom the preaching was given. Now we affirm further that Christ’s spirit did not go anywhere to preach to anybody, while he lay in the grave. If Christ’s spirit, the real being, the divine part, did survive the death of the cross, then

1. We have only a human offering for our sacrifice; and the claim of the spiritualists is true that the blood of Christ is no more than that of any man.

2. Then Christ did not pour out his soul unto death and make it an offering for sin, as the prophet declared that he would, Isa. 53:10, 12; and his soul was not sorrowful even unto death, as he himself affirmed. Matt. 26:38.

3. The text says Christ was quickened by the Spirit; and between his death and quickening no action is affirmed of him; and hence any such affirmation on the part of man is assumption. There can be no doubt but the quickening here brought to view was his resurrection. The Greek word is a very strong one, ζωοποιέω, to impart life, to make alive. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive by the Spirit. Landis, p. 232, labors hard to turn this word from its natural meaning and make it signify, not giving life, but continuing alive. It is impossible to regard this as anything less than unmitigated sophistry. The verb is a regular active verb. In the passive voice it expresses an action received. Christ did not continue alive, but was made alive by the Spirit. Then he was for a time dead. How long? From the cross to the resurrection. Rom. 1:4. So he says himself in Rev. 1:18, I am he that liveth and was dead. Yet men will stand up, and for the purpose of sustaining a pet theory, rob the world’s Offering of all its virtue, and nullify the whole plan of salvation, by declaring that Christ never was dead.

The word quicken is the same that is used in Rom. 8:11: “But 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.” God brought again our Lord from the dead by the Holy Spirit; and by the same Spirit are his followers to be raised up at the last day. But that Christ went anywhere in spirit, or did any action between his death and quickening, is what the Scriptures nowhere affirm, and no man has a right to claim.

Mr. Landis, p. 235, argues that this preaching could not have been in the days of Noah, because the events narrated took place this side the death of Christ. Why did he not say this side the resurrection of Christ? Oh! that would spoil it all. But the record shows upon its very face that if it refers to a time subsequent to Christ’s death, it was also subsequent to his resurrection; for if events are here stated in chronological order, the resurrection of Christ as well as his death comes before his preaching. Thus, 1. He was put to death in the flesh. 2. Was quickened by the Spirit, which was his resurrection, as no man with any show of reason can dispute; and 3. Went and preached to the spirits in prison. So the preaching does not come in, on this ground, till after Christ was made alive from the dead.

Some people seem to treat the Scriptures as if they were given to man that he might exercise his inventive powers in trying to get around them. But no inventive power that the human mind has yet developed will enable a man, let him plan, contrive, devise, and arrange, as he may, to fix this preaching of Christ between his death and resurrection. If he could fix it there, what would it prove? The man of sin would rise up and bless him from his papal throne, for proving his darling purgatory. Such a position may do for Mormons, Mohammedans, Pagans, and Papists; but let no Protestant try to defend it, and not hang his head for shame. Mr. Landis says that “Mr. Dobney and the rest of the fraternity conveniently forget that there is any such passage [as 1 Pet. 3:19] in the word of God.” But we cannot help thinking that it would have been well for him, and saved a pitiful display of distorted logic, if he had been prudent enough to forget it too.

THE WORD SPIRIT IN OTHER TEXTS.

There are a few other texts which contain the word spirit an explanation of which may be properly introduced at this point:--

Luke 24:39: “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.” These are the words of Christ as on one occasion he met with his disciples after his resurrection; and as he then possessed a spiritual body which is given by the resurrection, it is claimed that his words prove the existence of spirits utterly disembodied in the popular sense. But we inquire, What did the disciples suppose they saw? Verse 37 states: “They supposed they had seen a spirit;” and on this verse Greenfield puts in the margin the word phantasma instead of pneuma, and marks it as a reading adopted by Griesbach. They supposed they had seen a phantom, apparition, specter. This exactly corresponds with their action when on another occasion Christ came to them walking on the sea, Matt. 14:26; Mark 6:49, and they were affrighted and cried out, supposing it was a spirit, where the Greek uses phantom in both instances. The Bible nowhere countenances the idea that phantoms or specters have any real existence; but the imagination and superstition of the human mind have ever been prolific in such conceptions. The disciples were of course familiar with the popular notions on this question; and when the Saviour suddenly appeared in their midst, coming in without lifting the latch, or making any visible opening, as spiritual bodies are able to do, their first idea was the superstitious one of an apparition or specter, and they were affrighted.

Now when Jesus, to allay their fears, told them that a spirit had not flesh and bones as he had, he evidently used the word spirit in the sense of the idea which they then had in their minds, namely, that of a phantom; and though the word pneuma is used, which in its very great variety of meanings may be employed, perhaps, to express such a conception, we are not to understand that the word cannot be used to describe bodies like that which Christ then possessed. He was not such a spirit as they supposed; for a pneuma, such as they then conceived of, in the sense of a phantom, had not flesh and bones as he had. Bloomfield, on verse 37, says:--

“It may be added that our Lord meant not to countenance those notions, but to show his hearers that, according to their own notions of spirits, he was not one.”

Acts 23:8: “For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel nor spirit, but the Pharisees confess both.” Paul declared himself in verse 6 to be a Pharisee; and in telling what they believed, in verse 8, it is claimed that Paul plainly ranged himself on the side of those who believe in the separate conscious existence of the spirit of man. But does this text say that the Pharisees believed any such thing? Three terms are used in expressing what the Sadducees did not believe, “resurrection, angel, and spirit.” But when the faith of the Pharisees is stated, these three are reduced to two: “The Pharisees confess both.” Both means only two, not three. Now what two of the three terms before employed unite to express one branch of the faith of the Pharisees? The word angel could not be one; for angels are a distinct race of beings from the human family. Then we have left, resurrection and spirit. The Pharisees believed in angels and in the resurrection of the human race. Then all the spirit they believed in, as pertaining to man, according to this testimony, is what is connected with the resurrection; and that, of course, is the spiritual body with which we are then endowed. “It is sown,” says this same apostle, “a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.” 1 Cor. 15:44. That the term spirit is applied to those beings which possess a spiritual body is evident from Heb. 1:7, which reads, “Who maketh his angels spirits.” Angels are personal beings, but their bodies are spiritual bodies, invisible, under ordinary circumstances, to mortal eyes. Hence they are called spirits. So of God, John 4:24: “God is a Spirit;” that is, a spiritual being; not an impersonal one, as much in one place as another.

1 Cor. 5:5: “To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.” Although this text is quoted to prove the separate conscious existence of a part of man between death and the resurrection, the reader cannot fail to notice that the time when the spirit is saved is in the day of the Lord Jesus, when the resurrection takes place. This text proves nothing, therefore, respecting the condition of the spirit previous to that time; and, so far as our present purpose is concerned, we might dismiss it with this remark; but a word or two more may serve to free the text still further from difficulty. What is meant by delivering the person to Satan? and what is the destruction of the flesh? Satan is the God of this world; and if any man is a friend of the world, he is on the side of Satan and an enemy of God. The church is the body of Christ, and belongs to him. A person committing the deeds spoken of in this chapter must be separated from that body, and given back to the world. He is thus delivered unto Satan. This is for the destruction of the flesh. The flesh is often used to mean the carnal mind. Gal. 5:19-21. The spiritually-minded man has crucified, or destroyed, the flesh. Now, a person who desires eternal life, when he finds himself set aside from the church, and placed back in the world, the kingdom of Satan, on account of his having the carnal mind, understands that to gain eternal life he must then put away the carnal mind, or crucify and destroy the flesh. If he does this, he becomes spiritually minded, joined again to the body of Christ, and the old man, the flesh, being destroyed, he, as a spiritually-minded man, will be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. Spirit we understand to be used in contrast with the flesh, the one denoting a person in a carnal state, the other, in a spiritual. To deal with a person as the apostle here directs, set him aside from the church till he sees, and repents of, his sins, is often the only way to save him. In the day of the Lord Jesus, a person is saved by having his body fashioned like unto Christ’s glorious body, not destroyed. Phil. 3:21. The destruction spoken of in the text cannot therefore be the literal destruction of the body in contrast with the disembodied spirit.

CHAPTER XII.
DEPARTURE AND RETURN OF THE SOUL.

We have now examined all those passages in which the word spirit is used in such a manner as to furnish what is claimed to be evidence of its uninterrupted consciousness after the death of the body. We have found them all easily explainable in harmony with other positive and literal declarations of the Scriptures that the dead know not any thing, that when a man’s breath goeth forth and he returneth to his earth, his very thoughts perish, and that there is no wisdom nor knowledge nor device in the grave to which we go. And so far the unity of the Bible system of truth on this point is unimpaired, and the harmony of the testimony of the Scriptures is maintained.

We will now examine those scriptures in which the term soul is supposed to be used in a manner to favor the popular view. The first of these is Gen. 35:18: “And it came to pass as her soul was in departing (for she died), that she called his name Benoni.” This is adduced as evidence that the soul departs when the body dies, and lives on in an active, conscious condition.

Luther Lee remarks on this passage:--

“Her body did not depart. Her brains did not depart. There was nothing which departed which could consistently be called her soul, only on the supposition that there is in man an immaterial spirit which leaves the body at death.”

We may offset this assertion of Luther Lee’s with the following criticism from Prof. Bush:--

“As her soul was in departing. Heb. betzeth naphshah, in the going out of her soul, or life. Gr., ἐν τω ἀφιεναι ἀυτην την ψυχην, in her sending out her life. The language legitimately implies no more than the departing or ceasing of the vital principle, whatever that be. In like manner when the prophet Elijah stretched himself upon the dead child, 1 Kings 17:21, and cried three times, saying, ‘O Lord my God, let this child’s soul come into him again,’ he merely prays for the return of his physical vitality.”--Note on Gen. 35:18.

The Hebrew word here translated soul is nephesh, rendered in the Septuagint by psuche; and it is unnecessary to remind those who have read the chapter on Soul and Spirit that these words mean something besides body and brains. They often signify that which can be said to leave the body, as we shall presently see, rendering entirely uncalled for the supposition of an immaterial spirit which Mr. Lee makes such haste to adopt.

What then did depart, and what is the plain, simple import of the declaration? We call the reader’s attention again to the criticism of Parkhurst, the lexicographer, on this passage:--