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Christianity and War

Wed, 24 Aug 2011 02:00:00 +0000

Christianity and War

by Laurence M. Vance

This talk was given on August 20 at the Florida Liberty Summit 2011 in Orlando, Florida.

Thank you Campaign for Liberty for the opportunity to speak about a subject I feel so passionate about. I would like to speak to you today about Christianity and War. Although I am a Bible-believing Christian and a theological and cultural conservative, I write extensively about the biblical, economic, and political fallacies of religious people, and especially on the topic of Christianity and war. This is a subject where ignorance abounds in both pulpit and pew, and most of it willful ignorance. This is a subject that exposes Bible scholars as Bible illiterates. This is a subject that turns Christians into disgraceful apologists of the state, its leaders, its military, and its wars. This is a subject that reveals pro-life Christians to be two-faced supporters of wholesale murder.

If there is any group of people that should be opposed to war, torture, militarism, the warfare state, state worship, suppression of civil liberties, an imperial presidency, blind nationalism, government propaganda, and an aggressive foreign policy it is Christians, and especially conservative, evangelical, and fundamentalist Christians who claim to strictly follow the dictates of Scripture and worship the Prince of Peace. It is indeed strange that Christian people should be so accepting of war. War is the greatest suppressor of civil liberties. War is the greatest destroyer of religion, morality, and decency. War is the greatest creator of fertile ground for genocides and atrocities. War is the greatest destroyer of families and young lives. War is the greatest creator of famine, disease, and homelessness. War is the health of the state.

But modern-day Christianity is in a sad state. There is an unholy desire on the part of a great many Christians to legitimize killing in war. There persists the idea among too many Christians that mass killing in war is acceptable, but the killing of one’s neighbor violates the sixth commandment’s prohibition against killing. Christians who wouldn’t think of using the Lord’s name in vain blaspheme God when they make ridiculous statements like "God is pro-war." Christians who try never to lie do so with boldness when they claim they are pro-life, but refuse to extend their pro-life sentiments to foreigners already out of the womb. Christians who abhor idols are guilty of idolatry when they say that we should follow the latest dictates of the state because we should always "obey the powers that be." Christians who venerate the Bible handle the word of God deceitfully when they quote Scripture to defend the latest U.S. military action. Christians who claim to be dispensationalists wrongly divide the word of truth when they appeal to the Old Testament to justify U.S. government wars. Christians who claim to have the mind of Christ show that they have lost their mind when they want the full force of government to protect a stem cell, but have no conscience about U.S. soldiers killing for the government.

Many Christians have a warped view of what it means to be pro-life. Why is it that foreigners don’t have the same right to life as unborn American babies? There should be no difference between being for abortion and for war. Both result in the death of innocents. Both are unnecessary. Both cause psychological harm to the one who signs a consent form or fires a weapon. Why is it that to many Christians an American doctor in a white coat is considered a murderer if he kills an unborn baby, but an American soldier in a uniform is considered a hero if he kills an adult? In January of every year, many churches observe Sanctity of Human Life Sunday. Fine, but we need ministers who are as concerned about killing on the battlefield as they are about killing in the womb.

Much of the blame for Christian support for war must be laid at the feet of the pastors and church leaders who have failed to discern the truth themselves so they can educate their congregations. They are blind leaders of the blind. It is tragic that many so-called Christian leaders moonlight as apologists for the Republican Party. Many pastors are cheerleaders for current U.S. wars. We hear more from pulpits today justifying American military intervention throughout the world than we do about the need for missionaries to go into all the world. Our churches have supplied more soldiers to the Middle East than missionaries. It is appalling that instead of the next U.S. military adventure being denounced from every pulpit in the land, it will be conservative preachers who can be counted on to defend it.

If there is any group within Christianity that should be the most consistent, the most vocal, the most persistent, and the most scriptural in its opposition to war and the warfare state, it is conservative Christians who look to the Bible as their sole authority. Yet, never at any time in history have so many of these Christians held such unholy opinions. The association they have with the Republican Party is unholy. The admiration they have for the military is unholy. The indifference they have toward war is unholy. The callous attitude they have toward the deaths of foreigners is unholy. The idolatry they manifest toward the state is unholy.

The result of Christian support for war reminds me of a story in the Old Testament about two sons of the patriarch Jacob. In order to avenge the rape of their sister by some foreigners, the sons of Jacob told their leader that if his people consented to be circumcised, then both groups of people could intermarry and the rapist could have their sister to wife. However, after all the foreigners were circumcised, when they were sore, two sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, came and slew all the men who were incapacitated and spoiled their city. When their father Jacob heard about this, he told his sons: "Ye have troubled me to make me to stink among the inhabitants of the land."

Christian armchair warriors, Christian Coalition moralists, Religious Right warvangelicals, reich-wing Christian nationalists, theocon Values Voters, imperial Christians, Red-State Christian fascists, God and country Christian bumpkins, and other Christian warmongers have made Christians to stink among the non-Christian inhabitants of the United States. After almost ten years of the senseless wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, some of the greatest defenders of these wars continue to be Christians. The morality of going to war in the first place, as well as the number of dead and wounded Iraqis and Afghans, is of absolutely no concern to most American Christians. Every dead American solider is, of course, a hero, no matter where he fought, what his motive was, or how he died.

Support for the war on terror among Christians remains so pervasive that I’m inclined to agree with Mark Twain in saying that "if Christ were here now there is one thing he would not be – a Christian." I’m sorry to say that blind acceptance of government propaganda, willful ignorance of U.S. foreign policy, persistent support of the Republican Party, and childish devotion to the military are the norm among the majority of conservative Christians instead of the exception.

Non-Christian Americans should know that Christian enthusiasm for war and the warfare state is a perversion of Christianity, an affront to the Saviour whom Christians worship as the Prince of Peace, a violation of Scripture, contrary to the whole tenor of the New Testament, and an unfortunate demonstration of the profound ignorance many Christians have of history and their own Bible.

The early Christians were not warmongers like so many Christians today. They did not idolize the Caesars like some Christians do Republican presidents. They did not make apologies for the Roman Empire like many Christians do for the U.S. Empire. They did not venerate the institution of the military like most Christians do today. They did not participate in the state’s wars like too many Christians do today. If there was anything at all advocated by the early Christians it was peace and nonviolence.

Aggression, violence, and bloodshed are contrary to the very nature of Christianity. There is nothing in the New Testament from which to draw the conclusion that killing is somehow sanctified if it is done in the name of the state. As explained by the famed nineteenth-century British Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon: "The Church of Christ is continually represented under the figure of an army; yet its Captain is the Prince of Peace; its object is the establishment of peace, and its soldiers are men of a peaceful disposition. The spirit of war is at the extremely opposite point to the spirit of the gospel."

There has, unfortunately, persisted throughout history the theologically schizophrenic idea among some Christians that mass killing in war is acceptable, but the killing of one’s neighbor violates the sixth commandment. I have termed this the Humpty Dumpty approach. But as the aforementioned Spurgeon said: "If there be anything which this book denounces and counts the hugest of all crimes, it is the crime of war. Put up thy sword into thy sheath, for hath not he said, ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ and he meant not that it was a sin to kill one but a glory to kill a million, but he meant that bloodshed on the smallest or largest scale was sinful."

Back before the so-called Civil War in the United States, a Baptist minister writing in the Christian Review demonstrated that Christian war fever was contrary to the New Testament: "Christianity requires us to seek to amend the condition of man. But war cannot do this. The world is no better for all the wars of five thousand years. Christianity, if it prevailed, would make the earth a paradise. War, where it prevails, makes it a slaughter-house, a den of thieves, a brothel, a hell. Christianity cancels the laws of retaliation. War is based upon that very principle. Christianity is the remedy for all human woes. War produces every woe known to man." There is nothing "liberal" about opposition to war. There is nothing "anti-American" about opposition to militarism. And what could be more Christian than standing firmly against aggression, violence, and bloodshed?

So when did the early church go astray? Undoubtedly, it was the accession to power of the emperor Constantine. When the empire allied itself with the church, it was the church that changed more than the empire. Instead of spreading Christianity by persuasion and being persecuted for it, some Christians began persecuting those who could not be persuaded. This Constantinian mindset is alive and well today. When Jerry Falwell said that America should chase down terrorists all over the world and "blow them all away in the name of the Lord," he was expressing a sentiment widely held by conservative Christians.

After Constantine came just war theory.

War is mentioned over two hundred times in the Bible. The overwhelming majority of these instances concern in some way the nation of Israel. This fact is extremely important, because the president of the United States is not God, America is not the nation of Israel, the U.S. military is not the Lord’s army, the Christian’s sword is the word of God, and the only warfare the New Testament encourages the Christian to wage is against the world, the flesh, and the devil.

But just war theory has nothing to do with war in the Bible. Christian just war theory began as the attempt by Augustine to reconcile Christian participation in warfare with the morality of New Testament Christianity. In its essence, just war theory concerns the use of force: when force should be used and what kind of force is acceptable. The timing of force relates to a country’s justification for the initiation of war or military action; the nature of force relates to how military activity is conducted once a country commits to use force. The principle of the just war is actually many principles, all of which must be met for a war to be considered just. A just war must have a just cause, be in proportion to the gravity of the situation, have obtainable objectives, be preceded by a public declaration, be declared only by legitimate authority, and only be undertaken as a last resort. A war that is not justifiable is nothing short of mass murder.

Yet, just war theory is untenable because it is difficult to know with sufficient confidence whether all of its conditions have been met, because some of its tenets are impossible to realize, because the criteria of just war theory are too flexible, because it contradicts itself in that it sanctions the killing of innocents, which it at the same time prohibits, and because it is used to justify rather than to prevent war. Indeed, just war theory can be used effectively by all sides to justify all wars. Every government, every ruler, every soldier, every citizen – they all think their country’s wars are just.

Just war theory says that a war is just if certain conditions and rules are observed. But how can you make rules for slaughter and mayhem? By sanctifying war while attempting to curtail its manner and frequency, just war theory merely allowed Christians to make peace with war. That just war theory is used to defend the war in Iraq shows just how useless it is. Waging the war in Iraq is against every Christian just war principle that has ever been formulated.

But not only is just war theory not based on Scripture, it is rooted in blind obedience to the state, which, the last time I read my Bible, is not a tenet of New Testament Christianity. War is nothing but a form of state-sponsored violence. It is the state that decides to go to war, not the people, most of whom want nothing to do with war. The state always claims that it is acting defensively, has the right intention, has the proper authority, is undertaking war as a last resort, has a high probability of success, and that a war will achieve good that is proportionally greater than the damage to life, limb, and property that it will cause. What good is just war theory if it can be used by both sides in a conflict?

After just war theory came the Crusades, where conquest was conflated with conversion, followed by the continual wars of religion among European Christians. The ultimate picture of the folly of war is the bloodbath perpetrated by the Christian nations in World War I. From 1914 to 1918, in battle after senseless battle, Christian soldiers in World War I shot, bombed, torpedoed, burned, gassed, bayoneted, and starved each other and civilians until twenty million of them were wounded and another twenty million lay dead. The conduct of Christians in the United States before and during the Great War was shameful.

But even without the massive government propaganda campaign that was undertaken during World War I, we see the same shameful conduct among Christians regarding the war in Iraq. When Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq in March of 2003 with the announcement that our cause was just, Christians lined up in droves to support their president. They enlisted in the military. They put "W" stickers and yellow ribbons on their cars. They implored us in church to pray for the troops. They began reciting their patriotic sloganeering, their God-and-country rhetoric, and their "obey the powers that be" mantra. They dusted off their books on just war theory. They denounced Christian opponents of the war as unpatriotic, anti-American, liberals, pacifists, traitors, or Quakers.

Why? Why have so many religious people gotten it so wrong? As I have explained in many of my articles on Christianity and war over the years, there are many reasons: thinking that the war in Iraq was in retaliation for the 9/11 attacks, believing that Saddam Hussein was another Hitler, supposing that Iraq was a threat to the United States, seeing the war in Iraq as a modern-day crusade against Islam, assuming that the United States needed to protect Israel from Iraq, viewing Bush as a messiah figure, equating the Republican Party with the party of God, blindly following the conservative movement, deeming the American state to be a divine institution, failing to separate the divine sanction of war against the enemies of God in the Old Testament from the New Testament ethic that taught otherwise, having a profound ignorance of history and primitive Christianity, reading too much into the mention of soldiers in the New Testament, possessing a warped "God and Country" complex, holding a "my country right or wrong" attitude, and adopting the mindset that brute force is barbarism when individuals use it, but honorable when nations are guilty of it.

I believe the two greatest reasons religious people have gotten things so wrong are American exceptionalism and American militarism.

Many Christians are guilty of nationalistic and political idolatry. They have bought into a variety of American nationalism that has been called the myth of American exceptionalism. This is the idea that the government of the United States is morally and politically superior to all other governments, that American leaders are exempt from the bad characteristics of the leaders of other countries, that the U.S. government should be trusted even as the governments of other countries should be distrusted, that the United States is the indispensable nation responsible for the peace and prosperity of the world, that the motives of the United States are always benevolent and paternalistic, that foreign governments should conform to the policies of the U.S. government, that most other nations are potential enemies that threaten U.S. safety and security, and that the United States is morally justified in imposing sanctions or launching military attacks against any country that refuses to conform to our dictates. These are the tenets of American exceptionalism.

The result of this American exceptionalism is a foreign policy that is aggressive, reckless, belligerent, and meddling. This is why U.S. foreign policy results in discord, strife, hatred, and terrorism toward the United States. We would never tolerate another country engaging in an American-style foreign policy. How many countries are allowed to build military bases and station troops in the United States? It is the height of arrogance to insist that the United States alone has the right to garrison the planet with bases, station troops wherever it wants, intervene in the affairs of other countries, and be the world’s policeman, fireman, social worker, security guard, mediator, and babysitter.

The other reason religious people have gotten things so wrong is American militarism. Americans love the military, and American Christians are no exception. There is an unseemly alliance that exists between certain sectors of Christianity and the military. Even Christians who are otherwise sound in the faith, who treasure the Constitution, who don’t support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and who oppose an aggressive U.S. foreign policy get indignant when you question the institution of the military. It doesn’t seem to matter the reason for each war or intrusion into the affairs of another country. It doesn’t seem to matter how long U.S. troops remain after the initial intervention. It doesn’t seem to matter how many foreign civilians are killed or injured. It doesn’t seem to matter how many billions of dollars are spent by the military. It doesn’t even seem to matter what the troops are actually doing – Americans in general, and American Christians in particular, believe in supporting the troops no matter what. Americans are repulsed by the serial killer who, to satisfy the most basest of desires, dismembers his victims; but revere the bomber pilot in the stratosphere who, flying above the clouds, never hears the screams of his victims or sees the flesh torn from their bones. Killing women and children from five feet is viewed as an atrocity, but from five thousand feet it is a heroic act. It is sometimes suspicious when a soldier kills up close, but never when he launches a missile from afar.

Christians of all branches and denominations have a love affair with the military. To question the military in any way – its size, its budget, its efficiency, its bureaucracy, its contractors, its weaponry, its mission, its effectiveness, its foreign interventions – is to question America itself. One can condemn the size of government, but never the size of the military. One can criticize federal spending, but never military spending. One can denounce government bureaucrats, but never military brass. One can depreciate the welfare state, but never the warfare state. One can expose government abuses, but never military abuses. One can label domestic policy as socialistic, but never foreign policy as imperialistic.

It is the U.S. government that is the greatest threat to American life, liberty, property, and peace – not the leaders or the military or the people of Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, China, or Yemen. And as James Madison said: "If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy." Christians should vigorously dissent the next time some warmongering politician says there is some great evil in the world that must be stamped out by the U.S. military. As John Quincy Adams said: "America . . . goes not abroad seeking monsters to destroy." Christians should stop regarding the state’s acts of aggression as benevolent. Christians should stop presuming divine support for U.S. military interventions. And because just war theory merely allows Christians to make peace with war, they should reject it just as they would any theory of just piracy or just terrorism or just murder. It is Christians that should be leading the way toward peace and a foreign policy of nonintervention. It is Christians that should be leading the way toward the ideas of Ron Paul.

Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.

Solving The Problem of Hell

Sat, 23 Jul 2011 16:50:00 +0000

Solving The Problem of Hell

by Jefferson Vann

Our ancestors’ rebellion in Eden has changed humanity from what God originally intended. Because of that rebellion, humanity has inherited a sinful inclination that devastates all our attempts at being good and doing good things. We are tainted with evil, depraved to the core. Legally, we stand condemned before God, so that even our obedience is never enough to justify us. We all sin in so many ways and so many times throughout our lives that destruction in Gehenna hell is almost the only solution for a just God to apply to the problem of us.

Hell

Every life so corrupted by the initial rebellion of Adam – so separated from God by its inherently selfish sinful inclination – deserves the punishment that God warns us of in the Bible. Unfortunately, there has been so much unbiblical tradition added to what the scripture says about that punishment that the term “hell” has ceased to be a helpful word to describe it. A better term – the one Jesus used – is Gehenna. Unlike the hell of tradition, this hell does not begin at death, but begins on judgment day at the end of the age. Also, unlike the hell of tradition, this hell is not a place for the torment of disembodied spirits, but is the place for the punishment and destruction of the whole person – body and spirit.

Originally designating a valley near Jerusalem where garbage was burned, Gehenna for Jesus is a place where every sin – no matter how small it might seem – counts. It is an event and a place for the punishment of every act of violence. It is also a place for the punishment of every careless thought and word of violence. Jesus said “everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment … and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.” The reality of hell should make us careful about how we express our emotions.

Gehenna will also punish all those who have followed false teachers, and willfully passed on their deceptions. This idea makes modern humanity a little less comfortable, because it implies that humans are held accountable for the lies they are told as well as the lies they tell. But Jesus clearly taught that the religious leaders of his day were going to Gehenna, and taking with them all of their converts. He called the scribes and Pharisees hypocrites, because they “travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, (they) make him twice as much a child of hell as (them) selves.” The reality of Gehenna should make us all wary of accepting any “new” doctrine.

The scribes and Pharisees were considered the super-spiritual of their day. If anyone envisioned what a holy man looked like, the appearance would be similar to that of a scribe (scripture expert) or Pharisee (law expert). Yet Jesus detected an inner spiritual defilement in these religious leaders. He said they “outwardly appear righteous to others, but within (they) are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.” He warned them by saying “You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell?” The reality of Gehenna should make us all yearn for genuineness in our relationship to God and obedience to his word.

The hell of tradition is a different matter. Rather than teaching that hell is a place where sin is dealt with ultimately by God, tradition teaches a hell that is a sort of repository where God puts all those pesky sinners that he could not cure. It is a place of punishment and confinement, but not destruction. Having bought into the Greek concept of the immortality of the human soul, tradition is not in a place where it can accept what Jesus literally says about Gehenna. For Jesus, the judgment will take place not during the intermediate state (between death and the resurrection), but “on the last day.”

That “last day” will be truly the last day for all sinners, because they will be raised not for life but for condemnation, punishment (including torment) appropriate for each of their personal sins, and then destruction. Yes, destruction. God has not created anything that he cannot destroy. Jesus said that he “can destroy both soul and body in hell.” Jesus compared the Day of Judgment to the day the world was destroyed by Noah’s flood, and the day the people of Sodom were destroyed by fire. In calling people to himself, he urged them to take the narrow gate which leads to life, not the broad gate, which leads to destruction.

Gehenna is a place for that destruction of both soul and body. That is why Jesus said “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.”

Gehenna is not a place known for life, but death. Those who suffer on judgment day will suffer for only as long as it takes to punish them for their sins, and then they will experience the same reality as anything else that is thrown into fire: they will die. The redeemed who are not condemned to Gehenna are said to “enter life.” But those condemned to Gehenna have entered death. That is why Jesus said “if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire.”

Destruction in Gehenna hell is almost the only solution for a just God to apply to the problem of sinful us. Thankfully, there is another solution. Since sin is so pervasive, and its consequences in our lives so comprehensive – God has provided in salvation a solution which touches upon every problem that sin has caused for his creatures. That solution is the gospel, which explains what Christ did for us (substitutionary atonement), and what he will do (resurrection and glorification).

Substitutionary Atonement

The apostle Paul put forth an axiom which applies to every aspect of sin discussed. He said “the wages of sin is death.” Carried to its logical conclusion, that axiom would place every human being who has ever lived in the fires of Gehenna for a just destruction. Fortunately, there is a “but” in Paul’s statement: “but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” The gospel tells us that Christ’s death on the cross can serve as a substitute punishment for the personal sins of everyone who turns to him in faith.

This substitutionary atonement is God’s idea. It is a free gift from a loving God who is determined to destroy all sin, but does not want to depopulate his universe in doing so. It is a manifestation of God’s attribute of grace. It is also a manifestation of his attribute of justice, since the punishment and death due us for our sins has been meted out on the substitute. The lesson Abraham learned on Mt. Moriah was that God will provide. In that case, he provided a ram, whose head was caught in thorns. That ram served as a substitute for Abraham’s son, Isaac. The event prefigured another substitute God provided, when he allowed his own son to wear a crown of thorns, suffer punishment he did not deserve, and die. The wages of our sin was his death on the cross.

Resurrection

Since the wages of sin is death, the countryside of every country on this planet is littered with cemeteries. The sin imputed to all humanity as a result of Adam and Eve’s rebellion has resulted in just what God predicted: mortality and eventual – inevitable death. God offers a solution to this problem as well. He cannot simply reverse the curse and make it so that human beings will never die. He will not undo his just penalty. Instead, he offers a resurrection unto eternal life at Christ’s return.

This solution is once again a miraculous combination of God’s justice and his grace. His just punishment of mortality and eventual death still reigns. The cemeteries are still being filled. But the free gift of God is eternal life. This life will begin with a resurrection unto eternal, immortal life. It is the believer’s inheritance. Peter says that God “has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” Resurrection life is God’s solution to the problem of imputed sin, which keeps us heading to the grave.

Glorification

The axiom “the wages of sin is death” is also true spiritually. Our inherited sin has resulted in spiritual death. We not only experience death because of God’s justice, we also have died to his justice (and his grace too). Paul described this dilemma well: “For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” As much as we might want to do the right thing, spiritual death causes us to continue to sin.

God has provided a solution for this sin-reality as well. For every believer who trusts in Christ for his justification, God initiates through his Holy Spirit a process that will eventually lead to glorification – a complete restoration to a sinless state. This is a work of God from start to finish. Paul says “those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.” He speaks of glorification as a past tense event because he is emphasizing that it is a work of God.

In the present, however, most of us do not feel all that glorified yet. Our lives are a struggle where we keep getting in the way of the Holy Spirit as he seeks to sanctify us more and more. In fact, if anyone ever starts boasting that she has arrived and no longer sins, she is calling God a liar, and his word is not in her. But we can look forward to more and more victories over sin as we yield to the Holy Spirit. He is the seal and guarantee of the glorified life that awaits us.

In this life, believers do not have to experience the wages of spiritual death. This is true because “those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh (sinful inclination) with its passions and desires.” We have been spiritually resurrected. Our baptism symbolizes this truth. Paul says “we were buried … with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” Our death to sin allows Christ to live his resurrected life through us. This allows us to experience a glimpse of the glorified life now – in victory over sin.

The only way to solve the problem of the hell of destruction we all deserve is to trust in Christ for salvation now. All who do so will receive forgiveness from sins now, and the presence of the Holy Spirit in their lives leading to their resurrection and glorification at Christ’s return. All others will face hell, which the Bible calls the second death. That hell is permanent. There will be no coming back, and no second chance. For sinners today, Christ is the only way to avoid destruction in hell tomorrow.

Recently, pastor Rob Bell has suggested that God’s love will eventually restore even those who are thrown into hell itself. In his bestselling book, Love Wins, Bell speaks of “a long tradition of Christians who believe that God will ultimately restore everything and everybody” – even those he has thrown into hell. That long standing tradition was the belief in purgatory. It was based on another long tradition in the church – the doctrine of the immortality of souls. The reasoning was that since souls burning in hell will be alive for eternity, there is a chance that God’s mercy might eventually restore them. Bell suggests that this is God’s plan – to eventually restore all to himself and through that restoration his love will win over his wrath.

Bell’s solution to the problem of hell has much appeal to today’s society, just as the invented doctrine of purgatory did in the dark ages. It allows humanity to continue to reject Christ – the only solution God offers – and still come out alive. Bell’s problem with the traditional hell is that in it God never gets what he wants. He points out two conflicting facts: “ ‘that God is mighty, powerful, and “in control” and that billions of people will spend forever apart from this God, who is their creator, even though it’s written in the Bible that “God wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2). So does God get what God wants?”

Bell’s solution is to suggest what pagan Christianity did: that Hell is not permanent.

But everything the Bible says about hell suggests otherwise. Hell is a second death from which there is no resurrection. The first death is temporary, because all will be raised from it to stand before God on Judgment Day. Only those whose names are on the Lamb’s book of life will be rescued from that second death. Those who are not listed as having been saved will perish, be destroyed, and be burned up.

This destruction is permanent. The New Testament had many ways of describing something that is permanent. It could talk about things that remain after other things disintegrate. In such cases it would use the Greek verb meno. Paul said that the new covenant has more glory than the old, because the new covenant remains (meno), while the old covenant was being brought to an end.

Sometimes a word indicating the impossibility of destruction would be used of permanent things. Examples include the adjective afthartos (imperishable) and the noun athanasia (immortality). These words are never used to describe the people in hell. They are only used of God, and of those who come to Christ and so never see hell.

The word the New Testament uses of hell that causes the most confusion is the adjective aionios, usually translated eternal. The English word eternal suggests a process that goes on forever. The way the New Testament uses the word, it usually depicts something that is permanent in contrast with things that are temporary.

Notice, for example how the New Testament uses aionios to compare some things that were permanent with some things that were temporary:

• the permanent sin which can never be forgiven (Mark 3:29).

• the permanent weight of glory compared with our slight momentary affliction (2 Corinthians 4:17; 1 Peter 5:10).

• the permanent things that are unseen compared to the transient things that are seen (2 Corinthians 4:18).

• the permanent house (body) in the heavens compared to our temporary tent (body) on earth (2 Corinthians 5:1).

• the permanent destruction the lost will face at Christ’s return (2 Thessalonians 1:9).

• the permanent comfort and good hope we have through God’s grace (2 Thessalonians 2:16).

• the permanent glory that accompanies salvation in Christ (2 Timothy 2:10).

• Philemon’s permanent return to Colossae, after being parted from them for a while (Philemon 1:15).

• The permanent salvation made possible by Jesus, our great high priest (Hebrews 5:9).

• The permanent judgment that will take place after the resurrection of the dead (Hebrews 6:2).

• The permanent redemption secured by Christ’s sacrifice in the heavenly sanctuary (Hebrews 9:12).

• the permanent covenant made possible by the shedding of the blood of Christ (Hebrews 13:20).

• entrance into the permanent kingdom provided for all those who make their calling and election sure (2 Peter 1:10-11).

Use of this adjective was never intended to negate the concepts of destruction and coming to an end already inherent in the idea of hell. The adjective aionios was used to show that the event of hell could not be reversed. Sadly, this reversal is exactly what Bell is suggesting. He attempts to solve the problem of hell by making it a temporary phenomenon.

God’s justice demands a hell that is hot enough to destroy, and to do so permanently. The problem of hell cannot be solved until hell itself is destroyed. Paul envisioned a reign of Christ which would destroy all his enemies, including death itself. Death would be the last enemy destroyed. That means all other enemies will be destroyed – not punished for a while and then restored. Sadly, there will probably be billions in that number. Jesus said “the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many.” That is a terrible tragedy, but pretending that it will not be so is not going to help.

We should question the traditional view of hell (that of unending torment), because it is wrong. But suggesting that God is not serious when he warns people of their impending destruction is also wrong. Those who know about God’s grace, and his limited time offer of eternal life through Christ should be finding fresh new ways of proclaiming that truth to this generation on its way to hell. The gospel is the only solution to the problem of hell.

Reposted with permission from Afterlife.co.nz

Our Need as Sinners Met in the Gift of God

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 04:29:00 +0000

Our Need as Sinners Met in the Gift of God

By W. Laing

From pages 93-95 of Bible Standard September 1878

In the first eight chapters of Paul’s letter to the saints at Rome, you will find a very comprehensive deliverance on this important subject. In most emphatic terms he describes the guilty condition of the whole family of man, and the completely adequate and gracious salvation which God has provided, and caused to be proclaimed in the gospel concerning His Son.

What renders the Apostle’s argument so invaluable to us is its infallible accuracy. He spoke by the Spirit of God; and his words are as true as though they had been uttered’ by Jehovah Himself. Let all ponder them with reverence, and receive them with faith. My wish, at present, is to call attention to one sentence in that grand discourse, which, in few words, states our condition as sinners, and the provision made for it by the God and Father of all :-

“The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.”-Rom. 6: 23. “Were it not for the prevalent perversion of these words, as well as others of similar import, the mere reading of them would be sufficient for our purpose; but the necessities of the case demand that we explain the sense in which we understand them. The term “death,” in the sentence quoted, is generally understood to mean “endless life in misery; “ and the words” eternal life,” are used as synonymous with “eternal happiness; “ we maintain that these words are used in their primary acceptation, and that they express their own import. We hold that they are meant to be read and believed, not explained, as having any moral or figurative signification. “The wages of sin is death.” DEATH was the penalty threatened – death was the doom passed on the first parents of our race, for their transgression. “In the day thou eatest thereof dying thou shalt die.”-Gen. 2: 17. Mark, God said” THOU shalt die;” “not thy body, or a part of thee;” but” THOU.” The man Adam, formed by the plastic hand of the Almighty, out of the dust of the ground, and into whose nostrils was breathed the breath of life, was threatened with death. Dost thou doubt this? Then listen to the words in which the doom of this man, after his transgression, was declared. “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground; for out of it was thou taken; for dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return.”-Gen 3:19. Yes! Death, a returning to the condition he had before being formed into man, was the penalty of Adam’s sin; hence he was driven from the garden, lest he should eat of the tree of life, and live forever, v. 22-24. These are the true sayings of God, cavil who may. Jehovah’s decree was, that His wonderful creature, man – so highly favoured – so nobly endowed – made in the image of God – lord of the earth, and all upon it – should be placed beyond the reach of “the tree of life, which was in the midst of the garden,” and after years of toil and sorrow, return to the condition of the soil on which he trod, because he had disobeyed his Maker. As truly as all cattle, birds, insects, and men – “all in whose nostrils was the breath of life,” (Gen. 7: 22) outside of the ark, perished in “the waters of Noah,” so were our primal parents doomed to die-for “the wages of sin is death.” And who dare; nay! who, justly, can find fault with the judgment of God in this matter? Wonder not at the severity of God; but rather at the hardihood and ingratitude of His creature, who dared to disobey Him. But what has this to do with our case? Much every way; chiefly, because, “as is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy.” The root being mortal, so are the branches; and, spite of all the self-inflation, and vain talk, regarding human -immortality, each individual of our race, like its parent stem, is mortal. “All are of the dust; all turn to dust again “-” By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.”-Eccles3:20, Rom5:12.

“It cannot be!” cry ten thousand voices of the sons of men, “it cannot be, that so proud a being as man is, can be doomed to perish – to return to the non-being, whence he came. What! that creature, endowed with powers so stupendous – with genius so brilliant – with speech so eloquent, by nature a mere mortal? Preposterous!” God has, indeed, made man fearfully and wonderfully; conferred on him capacities of astonishing power; yet the mass of men are, in their lives, not far removed from the beasts that perish. Sensuality is more characteristic of the race, as a whole, than intellectual or moral beauty; but even where these latter qualities exist, they are the result, not of inherent immortality, but of the power and wisdom of God: their existence is no more a proof that their possessor shall never die, than that he never began to be. Vain man! How often is he, who, yesterday dazzled the world with his genius, and kept thousands hanging on the eloquence of his lips, to-day changed to an imbecile, or a raving maniac? Our limits, however, forbid indulgence in this sort of reasoning.

To such high thoughts of man’s immortality we, meanwhile, oppose the declarations of Holy Writ. “Trust not in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help; His breath goeth forth, he returns to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish”-Psalm 144: 4. Verily, man by nature is mortal. Our first father sinned, and so death came on him and his posterity, for” The wages of sin is death.” Indeed, it is so; and, what makes the matter worse, we have sinned ourselves. Need I quote the testimony of Holy Scripture to that effect? No; we know it is so. We have sinned-we have earned death, God’s sentence of condemnation has been passed upon us: as sinners we are condemned to die. “The soul that sinneth it shall die “-” The wages of sin is death”- “The wicked shall perish, the enemies of the Lord shall be as the fat of lambs; they shall consume; into smoke shall they consume away.”- Psalm 37:20. There is, indeed, a resurrection “of the unjust;” God shall one day bring them from their grave; but this is not to them a “resurrection unto life;” it is only the bringing forth of the guilty from their prison, to receive at the “great white throne” the sentence due to them for their own sins. They shall be judged according to their works; and, being found guilty, they shall be cast into the lake of fire, which is the second death, from which no resurrection shall revive them. Thus their “end is destruction” - “everlasting destruction.” -Rev. 20:12-15, Phil.3:19, 2 Thess 1:9.

Such is our case, as sinners,-a helpless one indeed; and, far as “Human action is concerned, utterly hopeless. “None can by any means redeem his brother, or give to God a ransom for him, for all are guilty, shut up under sin.” Yet despair not, ye children of men, for God Himself has provided deliverance by His Son Jesus.” “The gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Listen to the glad tidings from the lips of Jesus Himself-“God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him might not perish, but have everlasting life.”

See in these thrilling words God’s love to you as sinners. Perish you need not, for God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. The same record that declares our guiltiness, proclaims our means of deliverance. Our case is fully met by the very God we have offended. How transcendent the love of God; “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us,” and “God is in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing to men their trespasses; for He hath made Him, Who knew no sin, to be sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” “God hath given to us eternal life; and this life is in His Son.” “It is in His Son, not yet in us; but “hid with Christ in God,” secured for us in heaven-away up yonder at the right hand of the Majesty on high-this eternal life is kept for us till He Who redeemed us by His blood returns in glory. As yet we are “of the earth, earthy,” and may soon be numbered with the dead ; but He Who has the keys of hades and of death, shall soon return to revive us to life everlasting; for, as “Christ being raised from among the dead dieth no more,” even so “those who are counted worthy to obtain that age, and the resurrection from among the dead cannot die anymore;” but in the freshness and vigour of immortal youth, shall “run and not be weary” on the errands of Jehovah’s love, blessing and being blest through ages which shall never end.

And those of His who are alive at His coming, shall never die, but “be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye,” “for the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first, then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord,” 1 Thes. 4:16,17. This eternal life is obtained by believing in Jesus the Son of God, as the Christ -Anointed of God to “sit on the throne of David, and reign over the house of Jacob for ever” -the seed of Abraham, through whom all the families of the earth shall be blessed. “These things are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye might have life through His name.”-John 20:31. One thing especially let us remember, that God has made this rich provision for our salvation, through the death of His beloved Son. “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness even so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in Him might not perish but have eternal life,”- “ God so loved the world that He gave His Son” –“delivered Him up to the death for us all.” We are “redeemed to God by His blood”-hence-“eternal life is the gift of God through Jesus Christ our Lord”- “Through this Man is preached unto us the forgiveness of sins.” Thus is our case as sinners fully met in the gift of God – pardon to the guilty-life to the condemned. This announcement is, to you and me, indeed, “the gospel of God concerning His Son.” We have, in these days, much contention as to what constitutes the gospel of God, but, if the announcement of the gift of eternal life, through Jesus Christ to all who believe in Him, be not glad tidings, I know not what is. The gospel preached to Abraham, that in him all nations shall be blessed, was glad tidings of a most comprehensive character; being indeed but another form of the truth that “God hath appointed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom He hath ordained” -the establishment of His own kingdom over all the earth in the hands of His Son the Christ –when the will of God shall be done on earth as it is done in heaven. Doubtless these are glad tidings concerning the kingdom of God-which God has appointed to be preached among all nations for the obedience of faith; but what gladness would be in these tidings to me a sinner, condemned to everlasting destruction, except for God’s gift of eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ? This, and all the rest, everything that is announced in Scripture regarding Jesus as the Deliverer, is glad tidings of great joy-and must be believed by those who will be saved-but this comes nearest to our hearts, it is of all the glad tidings to you and me, the most joy-inspiring. It is life to the dead.

Thus have I spoken of the way in which our need as sinners has been met in the gift of God; but the half is not told – the Almighty Father has not only met our case completely- but far exceeded all our need. Not life alone; not merely endless being in His presence-but glory and honour, in His kingdom, such as His own beloved Son is promised. “Now are we the sons of God,” “if sons, then heirs, heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ,” yea, “all is ours, for we are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.”

Blessed be God, the Father of mercies-yea, blessed be. His name for evermore, and blessed be the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood; and made us kings and priests unto God His Father. Amen.

Reposted with permission from Afterlife.co.nz

Immortality: The Gift of God Through Faith in Jesus Christ

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 04:26:00 +0000

Immortality: The Gift of God Through Faith in Jesus Christ

By W. Laing.

From Bible Standard August 1878 pg 81-84

THE declaration that “God created man in His own image, “ is frequently regarded and urged as an intimation that man was created immortal. The argument stands thus: God is immortal; man was made in the image of God, therefore man is immortal. The syllogism, however, proves too much, for it assumes that, because man was made in the image or likeness of God, man must be like God in every respect; else why select immortality from among the attributes of Deity! God is from everlasting, He is Almighty, Unchangeable, Infallible, &c. Shall we, therefore, reason that, because man was made “in the image of God, he must be like God in these qualities! If not, why select immortality as the point of resemblance! There is nothing in the context pointing out this kind of resemblance, and we would naturally expect that the point or points of resemblance would be of a palpable kind. The connection in which the words stand would lead us to fix on some characteristic distinguishing man from the other creatures, and in which he bears some resemblance to God. The resemblance, whatever it is, can only be so in kind, not in degree.

The most obvious resemblance in kind between man and his Maker is in his mental and moral qualities. These separate him by a wide and impassable gulf from all the other animal tribes. Some creatures approach very near him in structure; but in the formation and development of his brain, and consequent moral and intellectual powers, he stands far apart from and above all the rest, and that these moral and intellectual qualities, in an incomparable degree, belong to God, will not be disputed. But Adam was not only made superior in organization to the other animals; he was also, by divine appointment, their lord; and it is in connection with the intimation of this fact that his being made in the likeness of God is mentioned. Thus we read: “And God said, Let us make man in our own image, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over every living thing that creepeth upon the earth. “

Endowed by his Maker with powers distinguishing him from all other earthly beings, and elevating him far above them, and fitted to control and subdue them, man was divinely constituted the lord of the world. Having the right of dominion over earth, and all upon it, he thus far resembled God-the Ruler of all. That man is not, by creation, an immortal being is clear from the penalty threatened him for disobedience. “The Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of. Eden, to dress it and to keep it; and the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day thou eatest of it thou shalt surely die. “-Gen. ii. 15-17. The penalty threatened was death. But an immortal being cannot die. This is so self-evident, that those who maintain that man is, by nature, immortal, in order to make the penalty threatened square with that idea, interpret death to mean endless life in misery!

It meant, say the divines

-1st. Death temporal; that is, the death of the body till the resurrection, and the separate existence of the soul during that time “in an intermediate state of misery and shivering anticipation of worse. “

2nd. Death spiritual or deadness of feeling toward God, associated with active hostility to His authority, and intense desires towards all that is evil.

3rd. Death eternal or eternal life, to the reunitedsoul and body, in most excruciating torments, to all eternity.

All this was threatened to Adam by the words, “Thou shalt surely die I “ How strange! Surely had God meant to punish Adam so severely, He would have pronounced the doom in plain, distinct terms, or added the necessary explanation? But we have no record of any explanation being given; and as we cannot imagine that Adam was skilled in metaphysics and systematic divinity, we cannot suppose him to have understood “death “ to mean all that. It was death that was threatened to the living soul, Adam. “Thou “-not thy body merely- “ thou shalt surely die, “-cease to be a living soul. That which sinned was to die. And so we find it expressed in the sentence passed upon Adam after his sin: “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread until thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. “ – Gen.iii. 19. Is it possible for language to express more unambiguously and emphatically, that, because he had sinned, Adam – the man formed out of the dust of the ground, and into whose nostrils God had breathed the breath of life-was doomed to die-to be resolved into the original elements whence he came! Verily, no. At the very morning of human history, we see verified the divine fiat- “ The wages of sin is death. “

In confirmation of the foregoing statement of man’s original nature and penal condition, we point to the fact of his banishment from the tree of life, and the reason assigned for that enactment. Man was driven out of Eden “ lest he should put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever, “-language quite meaningless if Adam was an immortal being, and could never die, but most expressive in the light of the facts as we have set them forth. Thou shalt die; “dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. “ The tree of life in the midst of the garden, which Adam was appointed to dress and to keep, was endowed with such-life-preserving qualities, that it prevented dissolution, and imparted immortality to those who partook of its wonderful fruit. Had man stood the trial to which he was subjected, this tree of life would have made him immortal; but we know how he fell, and was driven beyond its reach, to toil and moil in suffering, sorrow, and decay, till life’s brittle cord snapped asunder, and’ he returned to dust!

Ere we leave the sad and mournfully suggestive scene, let us notice the mercy of God tempering His judgments. He drove out the man, lest he should eat of the tree of Iife, and live forever. God’s will is against the immortalizing of sin and sinners. He will put an end to both; only the righteous shall live forever. And surely it is in mercy to the sinner himself. Eternal life in sin, could the Holy One permit it, would be an awful fate to the sinner. Jehovah [sic] at once stamps sin with His reprobation, and shows pity to the incorrigible transgressor by consigning him to utter hopeless death.

In the record of man’s original creation, constitution, and position in the world, we have seen that he was not immortal, but simply endowed with life, and with the means of prolonging it everlastingly, placed within his reach, on certain specified conditions; that he was, in short, a candidate for immortality. In this candidature he failed he lost the prize, and was banished from his state of primeval innocence and bliss under the doom of impending death. Such being the case, his offspring cannot be possessed of immortality by natural constitution. “Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return, “ was the fate appointed by God for the fallen father of our race -a fate which has descended to his children; for though to some the term of life may be comparatively prolonged, sooner or later the same result comes alike to all. “All are of the dust, all turn to dust again. “ “The dust shall return to the earth, as it was, and the spirit (or breath of life) unto God who gave it. “-Eccl. iii. 20; xii. 7. “Man dieth and wasteth away; yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he! As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up; so man lieth down, and riseth not; till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep. “-Job xiv. 10-12. “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. “-Psalm cxlvi. 3-4.

Not only is mankind without immortality by nature; but also, in consequence of personal transgression, under sentence of death; for “ The wages of sin is death. “-Rom. vi. 23. “The soul that sinneth, it shall die. “-Ezek. xviii. 4. That the death which is the wages of sin is real death, and not eternal life in misery, we shall afterwards have occasion to demonstrate; but we hasten to a happier side of the picture -

That the Lord was sent into the world, that sinners, by believing in Him, might obtain life everlasting, is so plainly taught both by the Lord and His Apostles, that it is hard to conceive how any attentive reader of the Bible can believe the opposite. Let us consider a few of the testimonies. “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him might not perish, but have everlasting life. “-John iii. 16. The teaching of this and kindred passages is commonly put aside by the remark, that the term “life “ in these passages, simply means “happiness. “ That those who obtain everlasting life shall be everlastingly happy, is true; but it is a truth which is not expressed in the term “ life, “ for we know that “ misery “ as well as “happiness “ is commonly associated with life, and that it is as lawful to speak of a miserable life as of a happy one. According to the common teaching, all men live forever; and it is simply because of this foregone conclusion, that “life “ is interpreted to mean “happiness. “ Happiness and life are not synonymous terms, and had the Lord meant to express the idea of happiness simply, he would have used the proper term. There is nothing in the context forbidding us to understand the terms “perish “ and “everlasting life “ in their ordinary acceptation; yea, rather, we should say, the context demands that these terms be understood to have their common and primary meaning (see verses 14-15). “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. “ The analogy or comparison employed clearly establishes that the sense we are contending for is the true one. A reference to Num, xxi. 4-9 will show this: “The Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died. “ -v. 6. “And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole: and it came to pass, if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived. “-v. 9. The Israelites were perishing because of sin; to save them from dying, a serpent of brass, by the command of Jehovah, is elevated on a pole, and the appointment made, that whosoever of the dying Israelites looked at the brazen serpent, should live. And “as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.” The comparison is so simple and expressive, that he who runs may read it.

And so is that other comparison which Jesus applies to himself in John vi. 51, “I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any man eat of this bread he shall live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” The parties to whom our Lord thus addressed Himself had desired from Him some miraculous display of power, as evidence that He was sent by God; and they supported their demand by referring to the circumstance that their fathers had been miraculously fed in the wilderness by the hand of Moses. “Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat. “ Jesus replied by asserting that God had given them a blessing of far superior value, and that He Himself was that gift. “My Father giveth you the true bread from heaven; I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever. “

Jesus, in representing Himself as “bread”, plainly intimates that one grand end of His mission was to give life. The only use of bread is to sustain life; and the only proper mark of analogy between Christ and the bread consists in His being the source of life to all who believe on Him. The property of bread is not to communicate happiness; for how many at this hour have abundance of bread, and continue unhappy!

That it is as the Giver of life that Jesus represents Himself as bread, is still further evident from His language in verse 49-50: “Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. “Where is the antithesis, on the supposition that the Lord meant, your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not be unhappy, or not live in misery forever?

The true antithesis is this. The manna which fell in the desert only sustained life for a while; it did not prevent their fathers from dying; but the bread which God had now sent down to them gave everlasting being. God had sent it that a man might eat of it and not die.

The sense in which the Lord used the terms “life“ and “death”, as consequences of fidelity or infidelity to Himself, is clearly defined in His language recorded in Matt. xvi. 25-26: Whosoever will save his life shall lose it, and whosoever will lose his life for My sake shall find it. For what is a man profited if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? “We are at no loss to understand what sort of life it is which the unfaithful servant seeks to save. It is the same kind of life which he shall lose. No one hesitates about the kind of life which the faithful martyr loses for Christ’s sake. Well, the Lord affirms that he who loses his life for His sake shall find it-surely that life which he lost.

It is of importance to notice that the word rendered “soul“ twice in verse 26, is the identical Greek word twice translated “life“ in verse 25; and should have been rendered “life“ in these four occurrences. “The Greeks,” writes the late Dean of Canterbury, “in their wonderfully accurate language, expressed by the same term (psuche) the soul of man which he has to save, and the life of the reptile which man crushes under his foot. And it would have been immensely to our profit if we had done the same. For then we should have understood what very few now do understand -the true nature, the true place, of this our intellectual and emotional being. We should then have read in our Bibles not only: “Whoever will save his life shall lose it, and whosoever shall lose his life for My sake shall find it,“ but also-for the same word is used: “For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own life? or what shall a man give in exchange for his life?” For it is the life of man which carries his practical will, with all those motions of intellect and feeling which sets it at work; it is the life which is mysteriously bound up with the body, which is reft from it at death; it is this life, which, if a man spend upon God and upon good, he shall save to life eternal.” [Good Words, January, 186.]

That the Lord Jesus Christ came to give “life” in its primary sense, is also taught in the beautiful language of John x. 10-18: “The thief cometh not but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd giveth His life for the sheep. “I lay down My life for the sheep. No man taketh it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. “Did Jesus lay down His spiritual life, or did He lay down mere happiness! Nay, it was His own “ life “ He laid down and took up again; and He likens Himself to a shepherd who, to save his sheep, lays down his own life; unlike the hireling, who, to save His life, flies in time of danger, and allows the wolves to devour the flock. If such language does not express the idea, that “life” in its ordinary sense, is the boon which Jesus laid down His own life to confer upon His own flock, then it is impossible to find language to express that idea.

The beauty and force of the comparison would appear all the more lively to a pastoral people in the East, where the attachment betwixt a shepherd and his flock seems much stronger than in our Western clime. “Thy servant,” said the son of Jesse to King Saul- “ thy servant kept his father’s sheep, and there came a lion and a bear, and took a lamb out of the flock; and I went after him, and smote him, and slew him. The Lord that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, He will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine.”-l Sam, xvii. 34-37. David’s love for this lamb of his little flock was great indeed; but how unspeakably greater is the love of Christ for us sinners, since He not only risked His life, but “ laid it down. “ He threw Himself into the lion’s mouth that His sheep might escape. He “poured out His soul unto death,” “that whosoever believeth in Him might not perish, but have everlasting life.” Herein indeed is love! Contemplate it calmly and gratefully, till tears of joy and adoration flow from your eyes. To save you from the destiny of the brute, and make you a partaker of His own eternal Iife, the blessed God sent His only begotten Son into the world, to live a mortal’s life and die a mortal’s death. He, with the benignity of God, gave up freely not happiness alone, but life itself, that you, through faith in Him, the risen and immortal Christ, might, at His appearing, enter into life that knows no end, no sinning, and no sorrow!

O Lamb of God! was ever love like Thine.

Reposted with permission from Afterlife.co.nz

Words of Comfort

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 04:23:00 +0000

Words of Comfort

by Geo A Brown

from pg 77 Bible Standard July 1878

“Wherefore comfort one another with these words.” 1 Thess. iv. 18.

THE last enemy, death, which is to be destroyed at the judgment day is ever busy in his sphere of desolating the happy homes of loving families, and robbing the social circle of some of its brightest jewels, leaving kindred and friends behind to mourn their absence, and grieve while calling to mind reminiscences of brighter days gone by.

But to such, and to all such, we would say, “Concerning them (the absent ones) which are asleep, that ye sorrow not even as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him… For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain (so, till Christ comes) shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort. one another with these words.” (1 Thess, iv. 13-18.)

Dear beloved ones, we have no cause to grieve: for the foregoing assurance has in it the greatest consolation that ever saluted the lost race of Adam. The fact that we are yet to behold those fair though lifeless forms, and press them to our bosom, real and tangible, all reanimated with life and vigour, but a thousand times brighter and lovelier: hear that same familiar voice in firmer, sweeter tones than when we last heard them, or listen to their sweeter accents while they join in singing the song of the redeemed as they stand with palms of victory in their hands: and while we gaze upon these lovely resurrected, immortalized ones who were’ as near and dear to us as the apple of our eye, that it is the same identical person that we followed to the burying ground, as literal as ever ill the world, and are again restored to us safe and sound, with all the life and beauty of a spiritual existence, far beyond the power of death and the grave, and to remain with us forever, and go no more out into the dismal night of death, to know these things is the greatest consolation and joy.

“Comfort ye one another with these words.” O blessed thought, to be assured of such a restoration! We shall know each other there. And the same familiar forms and faces, glorified. No shadow of immateriality that you never saw nor ever can see, will there be presented for you to recognize; but the same material organism that you can see with your eyes, and recognize with your understanding, This is the work of the resurrection, and is the substance of the Christian’s hope, and affords him the greatest comfort.

This was the hope that the two bereft sisters of Lazarus comforted themselves in when they made known to Jesus the sad story of their brother’s death. Said Martha, ” Lord, if Thou hadst been here my brother had not died. Jesus said unto her, “Thy brother shall rise again.” Mark the words, dear reader. Thy brother the same one, not another. Here we have strong proof that resurrection glory will bring back to us our own dear father, mother, sister, brother, wife, husband, child. Martha said unto Him, “I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” Jesus said unto her, ” I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in Me though he were dead (as Lazarus was) yet (at the resurrection) shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth on Me (When? At the time of the resurrection, 1 Thess, iv. 15) shall never die.” (John xi. 21-26.) Evidently they did not’ expect to see their brother alive again until the time to which Martha referred to, “the resurrection at the last day,” which seemed to them to be a long way off. But it is now nearer, thank God, and hastened greatly, and then we shall meet one another again, and greet each other with joy unspeakable and full of glory. It is but a little while” and He that is to come will come and will not tarry.” So weary ones, cheer up, soon will end, this dark night of sin and death of sorrow and crying, and soon will dawn the glorious morning of the resurrection and waken up all those loved ones who sleep in Jesus. Are we all ready for it ?

Reposted with permission from Afterlife.co.nz

The Saints' Inheritance

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 04:21:00 +0000

The Saints’ Inheritance

Republished with permission from Afterlife.co.nz from pg 80 The Bible Standard July 1878

THE Apostle says, “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, the things God hath prepared for them that love Him: but God hath revealed them unto us by His spirit.” The things so mysteriously hidden from the natural mind, are, nevertheless, “revealed” by the “spirit” in the prophecies of the Scripture; still, our minds, as believers, are not always in that advanced state that enables us to receive the indwelling spirit, so as through its teachings to receive and accept the teachings of Divine revelation, on questions of much interest.

Jesus said to His disciples, just before He went away, “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.” Moses wished to see God’s glory, but he was answered, “Thou canst not see My face: for there shall no man see Me and live.”

In our present state, faith is the test of our love to God, and is that by which we are and shall be justified, and for unbelief be condemned. The promises and oath of God are the basis on which faith is built. Faith trusts God to do all He has said, and embraces the idea that “He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think.” True, “we now see through a glass darkly,” but in due time, after we have walked by faith, we shall see all things clearly. If we could now see all that we wish to know, it is doubtful if we could “live” any more than Moses could, had his prayer to see God’s glory been answered.

The beloved disciple, John, had such a sight of his glorified Redeemer, on the Isle of Patmos, that he “fell at His feet as one dead.”

While the Scriptures give us sufficient light to show us there are inexhaustible treasures of joy in reserve for those who love God, and embrace His Son as their Life-giver, the far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory is kept under a veil, till we are matured and ripe to enter into it. That the earth is the inheritance of the saints is clearly revealed to faith, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”-Matt. 5:5. and Psalm xxxvii, 11. It is to be their eternal possession: “The righteous shall never be removed: but the wicked shall not inhabit the earth.”- Prov. x. 30. The kingdom of God is to succeed the “wild beast” governments of men, and supersede them all, and “shall never be destroyed.” -Dan. vii. 14-18. “It shall stand for ever.” Dan. ii. 44. The saints, Christ’s tried and faithful servants, are” to possess” it “forever and ever.”- Dan. vii. 18. Christ’s” dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the rivers to the ends of the earth.” – Psalm. lxxii. 8. “The Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of His father David : and He shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever: and of His kingdom there shall be no end.”

Away From the Body

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 04:18:00 +0000

Away From the Body

by Jefferson Vann

2 Corinthians 5:1-10 ESV: 1 For we know that if the tent, which is our earthly home, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 2 For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, 3 if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. 4 For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened–not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. 5 He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. 6 So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, 7 for we walk by faith, not by sight. 8 Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. 9 So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. 10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.

This is one of those passages that has been so hijacked by traditionalist thought that the wording appears to reject much of what the same author (Paul) says elsewhere. Before addressing 5:8 itself, it is helpful to review the theology of 5:1-10, to see that it is consistent.

What Paul believed about the Resurrection

This passage looks forward to the resurrection body. If the earthly body is a tent, that resurrection body is a building fashioned by God himself (v1). This earthly body can be destroyed. The resurrection body is permanent (aionios). It is a house not made with hands. But the glorious eternal body is not a present possession. It is an inheritance. This future immortal life is guaranteed (v5), and the Holy Spirit is the guarantee.

Paul is not saying that he has mortality (the tent) and immortality (the eternal house) at the same time. The reason he groans (v2) is that he only has this present mortal body, which suffers persecution and hardship, shipwrecks, floggings, etc. He is longing to put on that heavenly dwelling. Here Paul mixes the building metaphor with that of putting on clothing. Paul had used that metaphor in his previous letter to Corinthians, where he was addressing the same subject: the resurrection.

For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory” (1 Corinthians 15:53-54 ESV).

The translators have added the word “body” to the text, but it would be just as appropriate to supply the word “me” instead. It would then read “For this perishable me must put on the imperishable, and this mortal me must put on immortality. When the perishable me puts on the imperishable, and the mortal me puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” Paul is talking about the future when Christ comes to give him the immortality he promised. He is longing for that time, not the intermediate state. He is looking forward to life, not death. In this present life he expects to continue to groan, being burdened (v4).

With this promise of the resurrection in mind, he considers his present state in the (mortal) body. He does not feel at home. He feels away from the Lord. He would rather be away from his mortal body, and at home with the Lord (8), but that is not his choice. As long as Christ tarries, he makes it his aim to please the Lord (v9). He knows what is done in this life matters because Christ is going to judge and reward when he comes (v10).

In summary, in 1 Cor. 5:1-10 Paul argues that the resurrection is essential because believers do not yet have the eternal, immortal existence that God promised them.

What Paul believed about the Second Coming.

The second coming of Christ is the event Paul has in view. The building from God is in the heavens. The only way Paul is going to experience it is for Christ to come down to earth and bring it with him. When Jesus ascended, angelic messengers told the disciples that Jesus would come back in the same way that they saw him ascend: literally, physically (Acts 1:10-11). They did not promise that the disciples would see Jesus before that event. Paul, likewise, expected the second coming to be the next time he would see Jesus. Paul said “For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord” (1 Thess. 4:16-17). That was his hope.

It was at the second coming that Paul expected to get his new house, his heavenly dwelling (v2). He talked about “what is mortal” being “swallowed up by life” (v4). He had previously told the Corinthians that this transformation would happen “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed” (1 Cor. 15:52). The heavenly dwelling that Paul expected was not a disembodied existence, but a resurrected life. This could not happen at death. It required the second coming of Christ.

Paul is walking by faith, not by sight (7). He is not relying on what some Greek philosopher has told him about human nature. He is trusting in Jesus, that he will keep his promise. By faith, he lets the Holy Spirit inside him operate. That Holy Spirit is the guarantee of what is to come (v5), not what Paul already possesses. If Paul got what he wanted, he would be “at home with the Lord” (v8). But if Christ does not come in his lifetime, he is willing to remain “at home in the body” until he does.

What Paul believed about the intermediate state.

Paul repeats one idea in this passage in order to stress it. He is adamant about this one thing, so he does not want the Corinthians to misunderstand him. For that reason he says he does not want to be “found naked” in vs. 3, and repeats that he does not want to be “unclothed” in vs. 4. Both statements mean the same thing. Being clothed means getting his resurrection body. Thus, there is only one thing that being unclothed could mean: the intermediate state. Paul is not looking forward to the state between death and the resurrection. That is not his hope. That is not the event that he refers to when he wants to encourage other believers (1 Thess. 4:18). That is not what he is longing for (2). That is not the time when what is mortal is going to be swallowed up by life (4). That is not what the Holy Spirit guarantees (5). A disembodied existence is not what Paul means by “being home with the Lord” (7). For Paul, home is the building from God (1). Being “with the Lord” is not going to happen until the second coming (1 Thess. 4:17).

Paul does affirm a judgment after death, but it is the “judgment seat of Christ” (v10). Christ does not judge anyone during the intermediate state. He will raise the

dead and then judge them. He will judge the living and the dead at the same time (Acts 10:42). This will happen only after Christ returns (Rev. 20:12-13). Humanity is right to expect a judgment of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God (Heb. 10:27). But that judgment will not occur during the intermediate state. Paul taught that the judgment is an event yet to come (Acts 24:25). It is not going on now.

Paul treats the intermediate state as both existentially and theologically insignificant. He skips over it, concentrating instead on the more important issue of the resurrection. The Bible teaches that the intermediate state is one of darkness (Job. 7:9; 10:20; 17:13; 18:18; Psalm 13:3; 49:19; 88:12; 143:3; Prov. 20:20; Eccl. 6:3-5; Lam. 3:6), and silence (Eccl. 9:5,6,10; Job 21:13; Psalm 6:5; 30:9; 31:17; 94:17; Isaiah 38:18-19). It is no surprise, then, that Paul would not look forward to it.

What Paul does look forward to is the second coming, when Paul will be both away from his (present suffering, mortal) body and at home with the (returned, triumphant, sovereign) Lord. That is the hope he describes in 1 Cor. 5:8. That is our hope.

Reposted with permission from Afterlife.co.nz

On Matthew 26:64

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 04:12:00 +0000

On Matthew 26:64

Reposted with permission from Afterlife.co.nz

“Can you refer me to a helpful explanation of what exactly the Lord Jesus meant when he spoke to the High Priest in Matthew 26.64?”

Matthew 26:64 ESV: Jesus said to him, ”You have said so. But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.”

Caiaphas used this statement by Jesus as his only evidence to assert that Jesus was a blasphemer and deserved death. To him, Jesus had definitely crossed the line with the statement. What was Jesus saying?

He affirmed Caiaphas’ charge that he claimed to be the Christ, the Son of God. The idiomatic statement “You have said so” was understood as a direct confirmation.

He implied that more evidence would follow. The statement “but I tell you, from now on…” is the equivalent of the modern colloquialism “you ain’t seen nothing yet.”

His challenge was not specifically to Caiaphas, but to all of the people he represented. The second “you” in the verse is plural in the Greek, and so is the third “you”. He is speaking to the Sanhedrin Council. He asserts that they will personally see that Jesus is who he says he is at some point in the future. By extension, this challenge applies to all unbelieving Jews and all other nations and individuals who reject Christ in this life.

Particularly, Jesus claims to be the one who will fulfill Daniel’s vision of the Son of Man who comes in the clouds (Daniel 7:13-14). This is a reference to his second coming. This explains when this revelation will ultimately take place.

Jesus’ reference to his being “seated at the right hand of power” seems to come from Psalm 110:1-2. This messianic prediction speaks of a time when the Messiah will rule over the earth, and God will defeat all of his enemies. Caiaphas would have understood this statement as a direct rejection of hisauthority as high priest. Jesus implied that by rejecting him, Caiaphas had sided with all other authorities who reject God, and will suffer their fate.

Why would Jesus use the enigmatic phrase “from now on” (Greek ap arti) if he was referring to his second coming? I think he implied that the first evidence of his messiahship and coming glory was going to be the crucifixion itself. It was the crucifixion that the Sanhedrin was calling for. Jesus was tying together the two divergent aspects of the Messiah by saying that the suffering Servant of Isaiah 53 is going to prove to be the Son of Man of Daniel 7. Remember that all the members of the Sanhedrin affirmed the concept of the coming Messiah in principle.

This should serve as a wake-up call for all of those who claim to believe in God and the Bible but are not yet ready to subscribe to the lordship of Jesus Christ, and to join his church. The trial that day was not a debate between atheists and theists. It came down to one man: a carpenter’s son from Nazareth. The ultimate fate of millions of people depended upon the Sanhedrin’s willingness to accept that Jesus was who he said he was. They were unwilling.

The gospel affirms that Jesus is who he said he was. Those willing to accept that claim will not be ashamed when they see him coming in the clouds.

The Spirits in Prison

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 04:03:00 +0000

The Spirits in Prison

Reposted with permission from Afterlife.co.nz

Who are the “spirits in prison” to whom Christ preached? (1Pet. 3:18-20).

This passage links up with 2Pet. 2:4 and Jude 6. Note the following:

1. Human beings are never referred to in the Bible as “spirits” without qualification (e.g. “the spirits of just men made perfect”).

2. Angels and demons are referred to as “spirits” without qualification.

3. Those to whom Christ preached “disobeyed … while the ark was being built.”

4. The Bible speaks of angels who sinned in the days of Noah saying that they were imprisoned in Tartarus (2Peter 2:4,5) not the usual words for hell (Hades, or Gehenna).

5. Jude gives similar testimony (Jude 6).

6. Perhaps these rebellious angels were the “sons of God” in Genesis 6 (Genesis 6:1-4 c.f. Job 38:4-7).

7. The word used here for preaching is not the Greek word that specifically means, to preach the gospel. It simply means, to proclaim. The content of the proclamation is not stated.

8. The flow of the passage moves from Christ’s death, to his resurrection, to his proclamation to the spirits.

9. The subject of his proclamation was, most likely, his resurrection victory over sin and Satan’s forces.

The meaning is thus made clear: While Noah was building the Ark evil angels appeared in the likeness of men and took to themselves human women. These evil angels were arrested and placed in suitable confinement to await their final judgment. To these spirits in prison, immediately after his resurrection, Christ went and proclaimed his victory!

Such an interpretation fits well with the immediate context that links the resurrection of Christ with his exaltation and ascension into heaven to be at God’s right hand. It says nothing about the state of human beings in death.

The Witch at Endor

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 04:02:00 +0000

The Witch at Endor

Reposted with permission from Afterlife.co.nz

What does Saul’s visit to the witch at Endor teach us about the state of the dead? (1 Samuel 28:1-20, 1 Chronicles 10:13, 14).

King Saul, rejected by God, asked a “medium” to raise up the prophet Samuel for him. This passage is often taken as evidence that the “soul” survives the death of the body. But note the following:

1. Neither the word “soul” nor the word “spirit” appears in the passage.

2. Solomon, despite being familiar with this incident, could write (only 80 years later) “the dead know nothing” (Ecclesiastes 9:5).

3. Samuel came “up from the ground”, not “down from Heaven.”

4. Samuel appeared as he had died, as “an old man in a robe.” (Do “disembodied souls” appear old? Do “immortal spirits” wear robes?).

5. Samuel asked Saul, “Why have you disturbed me?” as if he had been asleep not consciously alive in Paradise or Heaven.

6. Samuel told Saul, “Tomorrow you and your sons will be with me.” Saul did not go to heaven. At death, good and bad alike go to one place, the grave.

God would not suffer his holy prophet to be at the beck and call of one under sentence of death according to Divine Law (Ex. 22:18, Isa. 8:19). Rather, God himself caused Samuel to rise bodily from the dead and to appear there, then to return to the grave immediately afterwards.

The Thief on the Cross

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 03:58:00 +0000

The Thief on the Cross

Reposted with permission from Afterlife.co.nz

Do Christ’s words to the penitent thief imply that he went to “heaven” the very day of his death?

In the original Greek manuscripts of the New Testament there was no punctuation. We are at liberty to read the text, “I tell you today, you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). There are a number of reasons for preferring this option:

1. The thief actually asked Jesus to remember him “when you come into your kingdom” (Luke 23:42), that is when he begins his future Messianic reign;

2. The “paradise” of Scripture is the New Heavens and the New Earth (Rev. 2:7, 22:1-5), Eden restored! It is yet future, when Christ shall come in his kingdom;

3. Had Luke intended the word “today” to belong to the latter clause and not the former he might have put the Greek word hoti as he does in Luke 4:21 and 19:9. He does not.

4. Phrases such as “I command you this day” are used frequently in the book of Deuteronomy, for example, to give emphasis to solemn utterances. “This day” goes with verb preceding it in both Matthew 6:11 and Luke 2:11 for other New Testament examples of this.

Also consider this fact: If, as “orthodoxy” teaches Jesus descended into hell for three days, following his death, how could he have been with the penitent thief in Paradise on that very day?

Clearly Jesus granted the thief’s request to remember him when he comes again to establish his kingdom.

Absent From the Body to Be With Christ?

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 03:56:00 +0000

Absent From the Body to Be With Christ?

Reposted with permission from Afterlife.co.nz

Do not Paul’s words, “absent from the body present with the Lord” and “to depart and to be with Christ; which is far better” show that the believer goes immediately to heaven at death?

The only comfort Paul offered the Thessalonian Church was that the dead in Christ would be resurrected when Jesus comes again (1Thess. 4:13-18). Likewise, 1Corinthians 15, the resurrection chapter, puts forward no hope other than the resurrection of the dead.

Looking at 2Cor. 5:8, in context, we note the following:

1. The hope expressed in the context is that of resurrection (2Cor. 4:14);

2. The “earthly tent” is our present mortal body (5:1a);

3. The “building from God”, the “eternal house in heaven” (5:1b) is our future resurrection body;

4. The clothing metaphor (2-4) elsewhere is used of the resurrection (1Cor. 15:53-54);

5. The “swallowing up” of the “mortal” by “life” (5) also occurs at the resurrection (1Cor. 15:54);

6. It is in anticipation of this hope that we “groan” (2,4 c.f. Rom. 8:22f);

7. Paul’s use of such terms as “naked” (c.f. 1Cor. 15:36-27 with 42 and following) and “unclothed” describe the intermediate state and it is clear from the passage under consideration that Paul does not desire to be in this state (3,4) despite how Paul’s Greek contemporaries may have felt.

8. Note lastly that the context concerns our appearance before the judgment seat of Christ (10), which occurs only after Christ returns.

Paul speaks only of future resurrection from beginning to end.

So Paul’s controversial words are best understood as teaching Paul’s preference to be away from this mortal body, having put on his immortal resurrection body as a consequence of Christ having returned.

In Phil. 1:23 the use of the term “depart” suggests a journey in which the beginning is death and the end is being with Christ. The “gain” which Paul has in mind throughout the context is that which comes of dying a martyr’s death.

The Dead Know Nothing

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 03:53:00 +0000

The Dead Know Nothing

Reposted with permission from Afterlife.co.nz

A TV Review (Who reads TV Reviews?) said: “Save for the quirky Pushing Daisies, in which a man brings the dead back to life, television has suffered from a rash – pestilence, even – of drama programmes which take as an absolute given that there is an afterlife, and that those in it are prepared to go to a lot of trouble to communicate with the still-living.

Medium, Ghost Whisperer, Sea of Souls and the recently finished Afterlife all demand that we accept that the dead have a bristling array of agendas, which they are intent on pursuing beyond the grave.” (Source: http://www.stuff.co.nz/4513103a20879.html).

Ecclesiastes 9:4-10 speaks in detail of the condition of the dead. Among the things this passage affirms are:

1. That the same destiny overtakes us all: we join the dead (v3);

2. That the dead know nothing (5a);

3. That they have no further reward (5b);

4. That the memory of them is forgotten (5c);

5. That their emotions, love, hate, jealousy etc, vanish (6);

6. That never again will they have a part in anything that happens under the sun (6b).

7. That in the grave, where the dead are, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom (10).

Solomon stood on the far side of Christ and his cross. Consequently he did not see the hope of the resurrection as clearly as we do. There is no reason to suppose, however, that Solomon did not understand the nature of death.

The one who stands for the Word of God in this area may feel they stand alone. They will have to stand against our culture, but despite a plethora of TV shows giving hope to the contrary the Bible says the dead have no agenda (Ecc. 9:4-10) and no hope apart from Christ (1Cor. 15:18-19).

On Matthew 10:28

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 03:51:00 +0000

On Matthew 10:28

First printed in “From Death To Life”, Issue 29, Jan /Mar 2006, p. 3

A very familiar passage, Matthew 10:28, says, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (NIV). This text is often put forward as the ultimate proof, from the very lips of Jesus, that within the fleshly carcass of every human being is an immaterial entity, called “the soul”, and that while this frail body may die, the “soul” is immortal and lives on. Taken in this way this text proves more than the believer in the immortality of the soul ever intended to prove. This is precisely because Jesus says God is able to destroy both soul and body in the fire of Gehenna. Whatever else Jesus intended to say he clearly says that the soul is not immortal! The souls of the wicked can and will be destroyed by God in the fires of hell.

There is, however, a better, non dualistic interpretation of the text available to us. We should note the following:

1. The Bible very rarely draws a distinction between the body (as the material part of a person) and the soul (as the immaterial part of a person). Rather, a human soul is very much a whole person, to be identified with his or her body. A living soul is a creature of dust animated by the spirit or breath of life from God (Gen. 2:7). In death the body returns to dust and the spirit or breath of life returns to God, in an exact reversal of the creation process (Eccl. 12:7 c.f. Gen. 3:19). The result is that the soul (the person) is dead.

2. Whether the reference is to the armies of Assyria, or to literal forests and fields (the former is probable), Isaiah says, “The splendour of his forests and fertile fields it will completely destroy” (Isa. 10:18, NIV). The King James Version more accurately renders the original Hebrew. It reads “[h]e will consume … both soul and body”. The truth is that the Bible uses the phrase “soul and body” / “body and soul” to refer to the totality of a person. To destroy someone body and soul is to destroy them completely.

3. In view of the coming resurrection (Dan. 12:2; 1Cor. 15; 1Thess. 4:13-18) Jesus often spoke of the end of this life, a temporary death, as if it were not really a death at all but a mere sleep (Mark 5:35, 39; John 11:11-14). In the same way, from God’s perspective, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are not dead (as spoken of by Jesus in the context of an argument about the future resurrection). Indeed, “all are living” (Luke 20:38) to him who, because of his unlimited power, including the power to raise the dead, calls “things that are not as though they were” (Rom. 4:17).

4. Elsewhere Jesus says the same thing as is said in Matthew 10:28 but without any hint of dualism: “I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him (Luke 12:4-5). It seems best to say that Jesus taught us that we need not fear those who are able to kill the body (thus temporarily ending our life in this world), but have no power to destroy us completely (for at death we pass into a temporary sleep, awaiting the glorious awakening of the resurrection morning). Rather, we should fear God who alone has the power to deprive a person of a future resurrection life by throwing them into the fire of hell to suffer a second complete and irreversible death (Rev. 2:11, 20:6, 14, 21:8).

Reposted with permission from Afterlife.co.nz

On The Intermediate State of the Dead

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 03:47:00 +0000

On The Intermediate State of the Dead

Bible Standard, No. 1, October, 1877, pp 3-5

Bible Standard, No. 2, November, 1877, pp 9-11

Minor alterations added

"The doctrine of the immortality of the soul, and the name, are alike unknown to the entire Bible." -Dr. Olshausen.

Job 14:10,14, puts this question, “Man giveth up the Ghost and where is he?” But who shall answer Job’s question? The Bible must answer it; from no other source can we derive certain information on this subject. It cannot surely be said, the Bible is silent on the state of Man after death for most Christians speak of this with great confidence, and appeal to it in proof of their opinions. We shall examine What saith the Scriptures on this question; guarding on the one hand against being wise above what is written; and on the other, overlooking things revealed which belong to us and to our children.

It is universally allowed, that the whole of man is expressed in Scripture by the terms body, soul and spirit. That man’s body, after death, returns to dust, and is insensible to either pain or pleasure visible positive facts demonstrate. The only question which remains for our investigation, then, is has man an immortal soul, or spirit which survives death, and does it enjoy happiness or suffer misery in a disembodied state between death and the resurrection? That it does is very generally believed by Christians of all sects, and whether this is a Scriptural doctrine or not we wish to ascertain.

How, then, does the Bible answer Job’s question, “Man giveth up the Ghost and where is he?” When Abraham breathed his last where was he? It is answered in Gen. 15:15, “thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace, thou shalt be buried in a good old age.” Again, when Moses gave up the Ghost i.e., or spirit, where was he? It is answered in Deut. 31:16, “behold thou shalt sleep with thy fathers.” The reader, by consulting the following texts will see the same thing said of David (1Kgs. 1:21 and 2:10 compare Acts 2:29), of Solomon (1Kgs 11:43, 2Chr. 9:31), of Asa (1Kgs15:24, 2Chr. 16:13), of Jehosaphat (1Kgs 22:50, 2 Chr. 21:1), of Azariah (2 Kgs 15:7), of Jotham (2Kgs 15:38, 2Chr. 27:9), of Abijah (2Chr. 14:1), of Uzziah (2Chr. 26:23), of Hezekiah (2Chr. 32:33), of Rehoboam (1Kgs 14:31, 2 Chr. 12:16), and of Josiah (2 Kgs 22:20). If it is objected all these were good men, let the reader then consult the following texts, where the same thing is said of the very worst characters. Thus it is said of Jeroboam that he slept with his fathers (1Kgs 14:20, 2Kgs 14:29), of Abijam (1Kgs 15:8), of Baasha (1Kgs 16:6), of Omri (1Kgs 16:28), of Ahab (1Kgs 22:40), of Joram (2Kgs 8:24), of Jehu (2Kgs 10:35), of Jehoahaz (2Kgs 13:9), of Joash (2Kgs 13:13), of Manasseh (2Kgs 21:18, 2Chr. 33:20). It is very obvious from all these texts, that persons, whether pious or profane, are said to sleep with their fathers. In the margin of some of them, it is to lie down with their fathers. Jacob desired to lie down with his fathers (Gen. 47:30). In Gen. 49:29, 33 his death is called being gathered unto his people. And, speaking of the wicked, it is said, “he shall go to the generation of his fathers” (Psa. 49:19). When persons are said to “go to their fathers”(Gen. 15:15), and to go down to their children who were dead (Gen. 37:35), nothing more seems to be meant than that they had gone to Sheol or Hades, where all the dead are represented as in one vast congregation. This is said of whole generations, as well as of individuals (Jud. 2:10), which confirms the views advanced.

That dying in Scripture is called falling asleep and being dead asleep is beyond all controversy. (See Psa. 76:5, 6, Job 3:13, and 7:21, Psa. 13:3, Mat. 27:52, John 11:11, 13, Acts 7:60 and 13:36, 1Cor. 15:6, 18, 20, 51, 1Thess. 4:13, 15, and 5:10, 2Pet. 3:4, Jer. 51:39, 1Cor. 11:30.) This sleep is said to be “in the dust “(Job 7:21, Dan. 12:2.) It is represented as a place of quietness and rest to all, poor or rich, the oppressor and the oppressed. (See Job 3:13 and 17:16, Isa. 57:2, Rev. 14:13.) Job calls this resting place in the dust “A land of darkness, as darkness itself; and of the shadow of death”, it is a land of “darkness” (Job 10:22 and 17:13; See 1Sam. 2:9, Psa. 107:10, 14, where similar statements are made.)

It is the same to all, whatever character they sustained while in this world. It is also represented as a place of silence (Psa. 94:17, 115:17.) It is also called the “land of forgetfulness,” (Psa. 88:12) where the persons are in a state of forgetfulness, as well as forgotten by the living (Psa. 31:12). Moreover it is often described as a state of corruption and destruction (See Job 26:6, 28:22, Psa. 88:11, 16:10, Job 4:18-20, Psa. 49:9, 20, Acts 13:36.)

It cannot be doubted that Job’s question, “Man giveth up the Ghost and where is he,” is spoken of all men without exception, and in our day is answered thus ” “All men, when they give up the Ghost, go immediately to heaven or hell, to be happy or miserable forever.” The Catholics have purgatory as a third place, to which they send some at death. But do the Scriptures speak of three places, or even of two, to which men go at death? Solomon says “man goeth to his long home” (Ecc. 12:5). Job calls it, “the house appointed for all living” (Job 30:23.) Â Solomon expressly declares “All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all return to dust again.” (Ecc. 3:20.) We are aware that it may be objected ” these texts only describe the state of men’s bodies after death, but have no relation to their “immortal souls.” Be it so; I have then a right to demand that texts be produced, showing that men have immortal souls and that at death they go to heaven or hell. All know how confidently our orthodox brethren speak of “poor immortal souls; of precious immortal souls; and of peoples never-dying souls, being every moment exposed to endless misery;” and how anxious they are to save them from such a punishment. If but one half of what they say is true, we may expect the Bible to be full and explicit on this subject. At any rate the objection has no force until it is proved, that men have immortal souls exposed to such misery. But, it may be noticed, that if the above texts only describe the state of men’s bodies after death, the sacred writers were at great pains to inform us about that which was obvious from every day’s observation. Is it rational to think that they would have used such language, yet believed men had immortal souls in a state of happiness or misery in a disembodied state? What orthodox man speaks so in the present day? If he even quotes such texts, he generally does it with some explanation, guarding us against supposing that they refer to the whole man. A distinction is made in Scripture between soul and body, but it is never intimated that the former must go to heaven or hell after death. Admit it true, and how can Job say that had he died at his birth, he would have been an “untimely birth” (Job. 3:16,) and should have been as though he had not been (Job. 10:19.) Would he not have been, if he had an immortal soul? Indeed how could he cease to be if this were true? But at death persons are to be no more (Gen. 42:36, Psa. 39:13, Mat. 2:18.) And of man it is said “Shall he deliver his soul from the hand of the grave?” (Psa. 89:48).

If any part of man existed in a state of happiness or misery after death, how could the sacred writers speak as in the following Scriptures? In Psalm 115:17, it is said, “The dead praise not the LORD, neither any that go down into silence.” Again, “For in death there is no remembrance of thee: in the grave who shall give thee thanks?” (Psa. 6:5.) And it is asked, “Shall the dust praise thee? shall it declare thy truth?” (Psa. 30:9) and “Wilt thou shew wonders to the dead? Do those who are dead rise up and praise you? Shall thy lovingkindness be declared in the grave? or thy faithfulness in destruction? (Psa. 88:10-11 compare Psa. 88:12 and 118:17, and Isa. 38:18-19, where similar things are stated.) But again it is said, “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.” (Psa. 146:3-4). And in Ecclesiastes it is expressly declared, “the dead know not any thing” and that “their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished.” (Ecc. 9:5-6.) At verse 10, it is added, “there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.” How these statements could be made by persons who believed that they had immortal souls, which at death went to heaven or hell, I must leave for others to explain.

But Job answers his own question in chapter 14:11-12 when he says, “As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up: So man lieth down, and riseth not: till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep.” Here he intimates his hope of a resurrection from the dead; but that he had no knowledge of the soul’s existence in a disembodied state, is apparent from verse 13, “O that thou wouldst hide me in the grave, that thou wouldest keep me secret, until thy wrath be past, that thou wouldst appoint me a set time, and remember me!” In verses 14 and 15, Job’s answer is in unison with all the above texts, nor is anything said in any other part of the book, which would lead us to believe that he had an immortal soul, which would exist in a disembodied state. In the book of Job a future life is entirely predicated on the resurrection from the dead. On the whole of the above texts I shall now submit the following questions and remarks, for candid consideration. Is it any honour to the sacred writers, to make them gravely and repeatedly tell us, that a dead carcase does not praise God; that it does not give thanks to God? And if at death man’s soul goes to heaven or hell, how could they in truth say that “the dead know not anything” and that at death “the thoughts of men perish”? Are souls in heaven and hell destitute of al knowledge and thought? If so, how can they be either happy or miserable? Supposing a man in the present expressed himself as Job, Hezekiah, and others did in view of their death, would he not be counted a denier of the faith, and worse than an infidel? Such would do well to consider, how those good men spoke as they did, yet died in peace. Did they not fall asleep with a hope and peace of mind as much superior to some death-bed scenes praised among us, as the composure of a rational man is to the ravings of a maniac? But I ask again, supposing that the sacred writers intended to teach us that the whole man ceases to exist at death, what better language could they have used? The texts are many, plain, and uttered without a single word of qualification, concerning any immortal soul which survives death. Does not their language justify the views I have advanced? And if I have mistaken their meaning, how are we to reconcile them with the doctrine of the immortality of the soul? But if my views be correct, it is certain that Job’s question is fully and repeatedly answered in the above passages. We frankly admit, that if it can be proved that man has an immortal soul which goes to heaven or hell at death, they ought to be understood as referring merely to his body, but if this cannot be done, prejudice herself will allow, the doctrine of disembodied spirits is without foundation in the Bible.

If the Scripture writers do not inform us that men have immortal souls, and where they go at death, it is fair to conclude that they had no such knowledge to communicate.

There are several adverse theories entertained among orthodox Protestants concerning the dead between death and the resurrection. Some teach us that immediately after death the soul enters either heaven or hell. Another class tell us that the soul is detained in a conscious state in Hades, there to await the resurrection of the body. According to this theory the Hadean state is a kind of purgatory existing somewhere, but nobody knows where. We cannot perhaps do better than lay before our readers a few testimonies from the writings of our orthodox fathers in order to show their utter lack of Scriptural evidence for such assertions as the following: -

Adam Clarke says, “If I die, I shall go immediately to Glory.”

Says Thomas Scott, “If our sins be forgiven and our hearts renewed unto holiness, heaven will be the rest of our souls, whilst our bodies will be secretly hid in the grave.”

Hiram Maddison says:- “We talk of the death of man, because we see the ‘earthy house’ dissolve, but it is only an illusion. There is no death; what seems such is transition. The body dies, but the soul survives death. … The sainted dead are already before the throne, and serve God day and night in His temple; and when Christ shall appear in the clouds of heaven to raise the dead, and burn the world, and judge all men and angels, these saints shall attend him down His starry pathway, to renter their bodies, now made incorruptible and glorious, and for the redemption of which they have so long waited.”

You will see, dear reader, by this extract we are given to believe that death is an illusion! Can it be true that Christ, when He conquered death only conquered an illusion? And when He comes a second time, will He simply destroy an illusion when He ‘destroys death’?

The sentiment of this modern theologian reminds us forcibly of the language used by the tempter when to our Mother Eve he said ‘You will not surely die.’

Charles Wesley represents the saints in the following poem as receiving their crowns, and beginning their reign with Christ immediately after their death:

When from flesh the spirit freed,

Hastens homeward to return,

Mortals cry, ‘A man is dead!’

Angels sing, ‘A child is born!’

Born into the world above,

They our happy brother greet,

Bear him to the throne of love,

Place him at the Savior’s feet;

Jesus smiles, and says, ‘Well done!

Good and faithful servant thou!

Enter, and receive thy crown,

Reign with Me triumphant now.’

The intermediate state of wicked souls is thus sketched by Jonathan Edwards:

“As soon as ever the soul departs from the body, the soul shall know what its state and condition are to be to all eternity. As long as there is life, there is hope. The man, while he lived, though his case was exceedingly dreadful, yet had some hope; when he lay dying, there was a possibility of salvation. But when once the union between soul and body is broken, then that moment the case becomes desperate, and there remains no hope, no possibility. On their death-beds, perhaps, they had some hope that God would pity them and hear their cries, or that he would hear the prayers of their pious friends for them; they were ready to lay hold on something which they had at some time met with, some religious affection or some change in their external conduct, and to flatter themselves that they were then converted; they were able to indulge some degree of hope from the moral lives that they had lived, that God would have respect to them and save them; but as soon as ever the soul parts from the body, from that moment the case will be absolutely determined, there will then be an end for ever to all hope, to every thing that men hang upon in this life; the soul then shall know certainly that it is to be miserable to all eternity, without any remedy. It shall see that God is its enemy; it shall see its Judge clothed in his wrath and vengeance. Then its misery will begin, it will that moment be swallowed up in despair; the great gulf will be fixed between it and happiness, the door of mercy will be for ever shut up, the irrevocable sentence will be passed. … We may well suppose that when a wicked man dies, his soul is seized by wicked angels; that they are round his bed ready to seize the miserable soul as soon as it is parted from the body. And with what fierceness and fury do those cruel spirits fly upon their prey; and the soul shall be left in their hands. There shall be no good angels to guard and defend it. God will take no merciful care of it, there is nothing to help it against those cruel spirits that shall lay hold of it to carry it to hell, there to torment it for ever. God will leave it wholly in their hands, and will give it up to their possession, when it comes to die [?]; and it shall be carried down into hell, to the abode of devils and damned spirits….

Departed spirits of wicked men are doubtless carried to some particular place in the universe, which God has prepared to be the receptacle of his wicked, rebellions, and miserable subjects; a place where God’s avenging justice shall be glorified; a place built to be the prison, where devils and wicked men are reserved till the day of judgement.

… And those who go to hell, never can escape thence; there they remain imprisoned till the day of judgment, and their torments remain continually. Those wicked men who died many years ago, their souls went to hell, and there they are still; those who went to hell in former ages of the world, have been in hell ever since, all the while suffering torment. They have nothing else to spend their time in there, but to suffer torment, they are kept in being for no other purpose [!]

Such is the language of Tradition. Such are the views held by the modern orthodox exponents of man’s intermediate state. ‘Orthodox’ though it may be called, it is directly opposed to the teachings of Scripture.

Charles Wesley gives us to understand in the poem quoted that the righteous go immediately to their reward at death, – then they are crowned, then they meet Christ. ‘Now’ they reign with Christ ‘triumphant.’ The language of Scripture bears a direct testimony against both Wesley and Jonathan Edwards, and everybody else holding such views.

The inspired writers are by no means silent on this subject; as we have shown in our first article, their uniform testimony is, when speaking of the righteous, that they are asleep (1Cor. 15:18, 20, 1Thess. 4:13, 16,) and this sleep is not in heaven but in the dust (Dan. 12:2.) The dead are said to ‘know not anyhing’ (Eccl. 9:5.) When death comes to a man, whether he be righteous or wicked, it is said of him, ‘In that very day his thoughts perish.’ (Psa. 146:4). ‘In death there is no remembrance of God’ (Psa. 6:5). They are in the ‘land of forgetfulness,’ (Psa. 88:12).

When we come to the subject of the judgement, we find that Christ teaches that no rewards are to be given until the resurrection. Speaking of the righteous He says that they shall be, ‘recompensed at the resurrection of the just.’ (Luke 14:14.)

In the Book of revelation we find under the 7th trumpet it is said, ‘And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth.’ (Rev. 11:18.)

Paul, in writing his last Epistle to Timothy says, ‘I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom.’ (2Tim. 4:1.)

If the statements made by Christ, and His Apostles, Paul and John, are true, then Charles Wesley and J. Edwards, with all who teach that men immediately after death receive their reward and punishment must be wrong, – which shall we believe? We are fully persuaded that the Scriptures, when referring to man in death, teach a negation of all life, thought or action, and that he is not in heaven or in the theological hell, but in the grave, a place of silence, oblivion, darkness, and corruption, and that he must of necessity remain there until Christ bids ‘all that are in their graves to come forth.’

Archbishop Whately, one of the ablest scholars and most acute theologians and a popular religious author of the English Church, says referring to the intermediate state, ‘to the Christian indeed all this doubt would be instantly removed, if he found that the immortality of the soul, as a disembodied spirit, were revealed in the Word of God. In fact, however, no such doctrine is revealed to us; the Christian’s hope, as founded on the promises contained in the Gospel, is the resurrection of the dead.’

The views we are now advocating caused serious disputes in the days of the Reformation, so much so that Pope Leo X. thought it necessary to call a Council to settle the matter once for all. With some it did settle it, but with others we feel thankful to say it produced little or no effect, for the light from the Word of the Lord had broken in upon their minds and in spite of the Pope and his so-called infallible decree, they dared to study the Word and proclaim their convictions of its truth. We will give our readers the decree of the Council, held AD 1513, under Pope Leo X.:

“Whereas, some have dared to assert concerning the nature of the reasonable soul, that it is mortal, or one in the same in all men, and some declare this to be true. We, with the approbation of the Sacred Council, do condemn and reprobate all those who assert that the intellectual soul is mortal, or one in the same in all men, and those who call these thigs in question; seeing that the soul is not only truly and of itself and essentially the form of the human body, as is expressed in the canon of Pope Clement V. Published in the General Council of Vienna; but likewise immortal; and according to the number of bodies into which it is infused, is singularly multipliable, multiplied, and to be multiplied; and we strictly inhibit all from dogmatizing otherwise, and we decree that all who adhere to the like erroneous assertions shall be shunned and punished as heretics.”

We now give Martin Luther’s answer to the above decree. In Luther’s Defence of the Propositions condemned by the Bull of Leo X., proposition 27, he replies:

“It is certain that it is not in the power of the Church or Pope to establish articles of faith or laws for morals or good works … But I permit the Pope to make articles of faith for himself and his faithful –such as ‘the soul is the substantial form of the human body.’ ‘The Pope is the emperor of the world, and the king of heaven, and God upon earth, ‘ The soul is immortal,’ with all those monstrous opinions to be found in the Roman dunghill of decretals.”

Again he says: ‘All souls lie and sleep until doomsday.’

Duke George, in writing to Duke John, October 15, 1521, says: ‘Some deny the immortality of the soul. All this comes from Luther’s teachings.’ The Reformers were also charged with stating: ‘All which has been said about the immortality of the soul was invented by Anti – Christ for the purpose of making the Pope’s pot boil.’

In the celebrated historical review, published in London in 1772, it is recorded that Luther taught that souls ‘lay in a profound sleep, in which opinion he followed many Fathers of the ancient Church.’ It adds: ‘The doctrine was held by the first Reformers.’

Sir Thomas More, a zealous Roman Catholic, wrote a book to refute the doctrine taught by the Reformers, in which he assails the teachings of Luther. He asks, ” What shall he care how long he live in sin, that believeth Luther, that he shall after this life feel neither good nor evil, in body nor soul, until the day of doom [Judgement]?”

To this book of More, William Tyndale, the man who first translated the Scriptures into the English language, replied thus:

“Christ and his apostles taught no other; but warned to look for Christ’s coming again every hour; which coming again because ye believe will never be, therefore ye have feigned that other merchandise.” [purgatory.]

And you, in putting them [souls] in heaven, hell, and purgatory, destroy the arguments wherewith Christ and Paul prove the resurrection. If the souls be in heaven, tell me why they be not in as good case [as well off] as the angels be? And then what cause is there of the resurrection?

We consider the arguments of Tyndale both logical and Scriptural, and we think that if our friends will come back to the Word of God, they will find toi their utter astonishment that much is said or written on the subject of the intermediate state, which cannot be sustained by the standard of truth. We would therefore earnestly entreat you to search the Scriptures, and see if these things be so. Death is not ‘the gate to Glory,’ but the gate to the land of silence, the land of forgetfulness. Death returns man to the dust, and on that very day their thoughts perish. Resurrection from the dead is our only hope of life, of immortality, and of eternal glory. “If there is no resurrection of the dead, then … those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost.” -B.

Reposted with permission from Afterlife.co.nz

Plato vs. Christ

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 03:44:00 +0000

Plato versus Christ

by Sidney Hatch

Brief Bible Studies, Vol. 21, No.1, p. 21.

“The Son quickeneth whom he will.” - John 5:21

The Greek philosopher Plato has been called “the prophet of the doctrine of immortality.” By this, of course, is meant the immortality of a human soul.

It was Plato’s earnest undertaking to prove the eternal existence of the soul – its pre-existence, its present existence, and its continued existence after death. Thus, to Plato, death was the medium to a blissful future, for it meant the release of the soul from the body (cf. Dollinger, The Gentile and the Jew, I, 336).

By way of contrast, Jesus of Nazareth may be called the prophet of the resurrection of the dead. Not only did He teach a resurrection from the dead, He also claimed the power and authority to perform that resurrection.

He told Peter and the disciples that “the gates of hell” would not prevail against His “church” or “congregation” (Mt. 16:18). The power of the grave could not keep them. Someday, in resurrection, they would come forth.

He told the Jews that as the Father raises up the dead, and forms them alive, so He, the Son, forms them alive. Resurrection power has been committed to the Son of God (Jn. 5:21).

Finally, Jesus said that some day the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God — and those who hear that voice will come to life again (Jn. 5:25). They will live again in resurrection.

Jesus of Nazareth proved His claims. He brought the widow’s son back to life (Lk. 7:15). He raised the little maid, Jairus’ daughter (Lk. 8:55). And finally, He raised Lazarus from the dead (Jn. 11:44).

The philosopher Plato never really proved his claims as to “the immortality of the human soul.” One of his so-called proofs was to accept as a certain fact the pre-existence of the soul (cf. Dollinger, op. cit., p. 337)!

Plato and his followers have never captured a so-called “soul” and put it on display. They have always had much help from the doctrines and practices of spiritualism, and from demons that impersonate “departed souls.” But the evidence is rejected, both by careful students of Scripture, and by reasonable men.

In view of these facts, is it not reasonable that we reject Plato’s doctrine, and accept that of Christ? One excludes the other. If we have immortal souls, then we really do not need a resurrection from the dead — in fact, we do not really die!

But God’s Word tells us that death is conquered, not by Plato’s philosophy, but by Christ’s resurrection from the dead, “Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory [over death and the grave] through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 15:57).

Reposted with permission from Afterlife.co.nz

Is Man Immortal?

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 03:41:00 +0000

Is Man Immortal?

By A.A. Phelps, A.M. Late Free Methodist Minister, U.S.A.

Bible Standard, No. 2, November, 1877, pp12-14.

For many years I tenaciously clung to the dogma of natural immortality. At length I so far laid aside my prejudice as to give the whole subject a thorough investigation. I became intensely in earnest to know the truth, whatever might befall my preconceived opinions. This investigated resulted in a radical revolution of sentiment in regard to man’s nature and the sinner’s destiny. I have been compelled by an overwhelming array of Scripture evidence, to reject and repudiate the current doctrine of natural immortality. I subjoin a few reasons, very briefly stated for this rejection.

1. The doctrine of natural immortality has a very unfavourable origin. It can be traced back through the Romish Church to the Pharisees, and from them to the heathen philosophers and idolatrous Egyptians! Who advocated it. They probably received it by a sort of Satanic mesmerism; for the old Serpent first published the doctrine amid the lovely bowers of Eden in these words: “Ye shall not surely die.” (Gen. 3:4). A dogma that was invented by the devil, received by Pagans, nurtured by Papists, and adopted by Protestants, ought to be looked upon with some suspicion.

2. It is at variance with the inspired record of man’s creation. His origin is succinctly stated thus: “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.) There is not the faintest intimation here of an invisible intangible, imponderable, immaterial, immortal conscious entity, without length, breadth, or thickness, without exterior or interior, capable of thinking, knowing, and feeling, independent of the body, and destined to live through all the years of God.

3. It clashes with the Bible account of man’s fall. Adam was placed on probation. A simple test was applied. Obedience would have brought immortality, while disobedience would as certainly result in mortality. The penalty was thus briefly stated: “in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Gen 2:17,) or , “dying thou shalt die.” Whn a term is used for the first time, it ought to be used in a plain, natural, literal sense. It was so used in Eden. If the penalty in Eden was moral death, then the doctrine of Universalism is true; “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” (1 Cor. 15:22.) Adam sinned. He at once became a dying man. He was driven out of paradise, “lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever.” (Gen. 3:22.) O, it was the hand of love that pushed fallen and sinful man aside; that shut him away from the tree of life, and thus cut off all possibility of his becoming immortal in sin and misery!

4. It renders the execution of the sinner’s penalty impossible. God allowed the race to be propagated under the malediction of physical death, yet coupled with provisions for the future. Adam’s disobedience lands all his progeny in the grave; but Christ’s obedience lifts them all out of it. The whole human family share so fully in the atonement of Jesus as to have secured to them an unconditional resurrection from the Adamic death. Every man must now stand or fall for himself. Whoever will come into the glorious plan will be eternally saved. Whoever refuses must die for his own sins. This awful doom awaits the impenitent, after the judgement verdicts shall have been pronounced. In various phrases do the Scriptures teach the final extermination of the wicked in the “lake of fire.” They shall “die.” They shall “perish.” They shall be “destroyed.” They shall be “consumed.” They shall be “burnt up, root and branch.” Such a destiny would be impossible, if man possessed an immortal soul.

5. Immortality is never ascribed to man. In our common version [the KJV] the term “immortal” occurs only once, and is then applied to God. (1 Tim. 1:17.) The term “immortality” is found five times; from which we learn: (1) that God only possesses it (1 Tim. 6:16); (2) that Christ brought it to light in the Gospel (2 Tim. 1:10); (3) that we are to seek for it (Rom. 2:7); and (4 and 5) that Christians are to put it on at the resurrection (1 Cor. 15:53, 54). Such terms as “undying soul,” “deathless soul,” “never dying spirit,” though so common in theology are nowhere to be found in the Bible. So far from teaching that immortality is a birthright possession, the Scriptures everywhere hold it up as a priceless boon to besought – a blessing for which we are entirely dependent upon Jesus Christ, the great Life-giver.

6. The doctrine of natural immortality supersedes the necessity of a resurrection. The difference between Church theology and Bible theology is this: the former predicates a future life upon the assumed fact of inherent immortality; the latter predicates it upon a resurrection from the dead. There is a natural antagonism between the two positions. Hence it is that the glorious doctrine of the resurrection, so conspicuous in the teaching of Christ and the Apostles, has fallen into disrepute. Many popular divines utterly repudiate it. Others habitually ignore it. In the Churches generally, very little stress is laid upon it. Indeed, why should there be if the prevailing notions are correct? If death is a grand emancipation, coming with a friendly hand to open our prison and let us go free, if “death is the gate to endless joys,” if the dead are not really dead, but more fully alive than ever; then a resurrection is entirely superfluous, and ought to be rejected.

7. It reduces the judgement scene to a nullity. If the current view is correct, that the real man is immortal, “shuffling off this mortal coil” and entering upon his reward at death, surely a judgement day would be entirely useless. Consistency demands that we should either give up the idea of a coming tribunal, or cease to believe that man can be rewarded before he is judged. Popular theology would have us believe that Christians are continually flying up to heaven, and sinners sinking down to hell! That the one class are already crowned with glory, and the other class already cursed with the pangs of their merited doom, but that there is still a day of judgement, when the saints are to be rallied from their abode of blessedness, and sinners are to be brought out of prison of despair; that they are to receive their formal sentence, and then be sent back to their former abodes of blackness or bliss! Can anyone seriously believe that God’s administration will ever be so absurd?

8. It subverts the doctrine of Christ’s second coming. If men are rewarded and punished in a “disembodied” state, there is no need of Christ’s coming to raise the dead. If the destinies of men can be adjusted at death, there is no need of Christ’s coming to judge the world. If the saints are to live forever in heaven, there is no need of Christ’s coming to renew the earth and to set up His kingdom upon it; for it would be a lovely reign with every saint in heaven, and every sinner removed to a distant hell. Surely there is no adequate reason why Christ should ever return to earth if the prevalent ideas of man’s nature and destiny are correct. Is it any wonder that so little stress is laid upon the doctrine of Christ’s personal coming? The traditions of men have displaced this glorious truth, and turned the whole system of revealed religion into a terrible moral chaos!

9. The dogma of natural immortality is the fruitful source of dangerous error. It has given birth to a hateful progeny. It is the foundation of the worst religious developments that have ever cursed the earth. The intelligent reader will hardly venture to deny that Mormonism, Mahometanism, Swedenborgianism, Shakerism, and Spiritualism are built upon the assumed fact that man is immortal. It is the boasted mission of Spiritualism, indeed, to teach that “man has an immortal soul.” The whole system depends upon it. And yet it is but a natural and logical outgrowth from what the Churches generally advocate as “orthodoxy.” Spiritualism is “orthodoxy” gone to seed. Nor can we with any consistency pour out denunciations upon a class religionists for having travelled legitimately to certain conclusions from the premises we have so generously granted them. Who does not know that Mariolatry and Purgatory are based upon the assumption that dead folks are alive? Let the Scripture fact that “the dead know not anything” be established; and there will be no more money paid to have departed friends prayed through the pains of Purgatory! Let the whole Catholic Church be convinced that the virgin Mary is now dead and she will cease to be an object of worship. The horrid doctrine of eternal torment would never have found a place in the Church of God but for the antecedent notion of natural immortality. This granted, the other is a logical necessity, unless it can be shown that all men are to be saved. But the doctrine of endless misery is so foul a slander on God’s character that many have been compelled to repudiate it. Assuming that man is immortal the only alternative is eternal torment or universalism. The latter is a natural rebound from the former. If men are to exist eternally, they must exist in a state of happiness or misery. The one being rejected, the other must be accepted. The consequence is, that the dogma of unending agony is making men universalists and infidels on a large scale. Universalism and endless misery are both built upon the foundation of inherent immortality. They are the dangerous extremes. The truth lies between them. But enough. The bitterness of the fruit attests the badness of the tree.

Reposted with permission from Afterlife.co.nz

Immortality and the City Temple

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 03:40:00 +0000

Immortality and the City Temple

Extracts from a Discourse by Joseph Parker, D.D

Bible Standard, No. 2, November, 1877, pp14-15.

London boasts many able preachers, and among their number Joseph Parker, D.D., now of the City Temple, holds a conspicuous place. This gentleman long ago identified himself with those who believe and teach that pain is but an episode in life, and not of eternal continuance; and that righteousness alone has for its guerdon and crown everlasting being.

When we have sometimes mentioned the name of this celebrity as in sympathy with the doctrine of the non eternity of evil, we have had the question put to us, “Why, if such a man believes as you say, does he not preach it?” We have the pleasure this month of making some extracts from a sermon of his, printed in the Christian Union of December 31, 1875, by which it will be seen that he does preach it. The remarks occur under the text heading, “The City Temple Pulpit” being on page 833. They are as follows:-

“The doctrine of eternal torments, as popularly understood, was the next doctrine that used to give me much uneasiness. My minister – an honest and faithful man, well read in the letter of Scripture – wished me to believe that impenitent sinners, and all the heathen world, were condemned to the torment of literal fire. … I felt that it could not be true, yet I could not put into words the strong feeling which rose up in my heart against it. I saw, if this doctrine were true, that God had given to His creatures a power which he could not take from them, namely, the power of living forever, and defying Him to put an end to their existence. … The wicked man, shut up in fire and brimstone, would be able to say to God, “I am as immortal as You are! You cannot put an end to my being; I challenge, I defy you to destroy me; and in this pit there are millions upon millions like me, from every land under the sun; we outvote Your saved ones; in mere numbers we overwhelm You; hell is larger than heaven; and while hell exists it will be a memorial against Your supposed omnipotence.” I know these were horrible words, but I saw that there was no getting over them by fair and sound argument. I could have said, “Hush!” and I could have avoided the subject; but this was neither honest nor bold.

“If God had the power to put an end to the misery, by putting an end to the existence of these unhappy creatures, and did not exercise that power, I felt that the argument told against Him in a deadlier manner; for whilst in the first instance it might be a strictly logical necessity, it became in the second instance a moral purpose, a deliberate and absolutely worthless visitation of cruelty, I say, “absolutely worthless,” because it led to nothing, and was meant to lead to nothing. … The case used to show itself to my view in this way: – The man sinned for a period of seventy years; and then he spent seventy years in hell fire, and seventy more, and a hundred more, and a thousand more, and a million more, and was told in the madness of his agony that his punishment was only beginning to begin; and then he lingered a thousand ages more, and he was told he was as far from the end of his torture as he was at the beginning! As I thought this, I was filled with great distress; not so much on account of myself as actually on account of God; for I felt that it was not right that there should be a limit to mercy and no limit to punishment – that mercy should plead for a brief day, but that punishment should have the liberty of innumerable ages, I said in my young ardour, “This is not even-handed justice; it is utterly unlike God.”

“So I gave up this horrible view of the destiny of the wicked because my moral instincts would not tolerate it. … I proceeded to open the Bible and consult the Revelation. I soon found relief. I saw that man was made capable of immortality; that God’s design was that man should live for ever, but that he should not do so by an arbitrary decree but by his own consent to the will of God; so that immortality should not be a burden but a blessing, – for a frightful thing it is to be what you cannot help being! Mark that doctrine clearly if you please, and see how carefully God has saved Himself from every reproach that might arise from its application. Has God given you a body? Yon can destroy it. Has God given you reasoning faculties? You can turn yourself into a madman. Has God sent you into a certain country? You can denationalise yourself. Has God made you susceptible of immortality? You may choose death rather than life. Tell me that I must be immortal, and you oppress me with a burden; tell me that I may be immortal, and you preach to me glad tidings of great joy. Such glad tidings I found in the Gospel. Christ asked me to live: He said He came to give me life; He said that He Himself was the Life.”

From other remarks made by Mr. Parker in the same discourse it appears that he would like to see his way clear to “final and universal restoration of the human race,” [who would not?] but is unable to do so. He concludes with the following advice-

“What I want you to do in this matter, however, is clear enough; do not un-Christianise any man who is trying to mitigate the awful gloom which accompanies the doctrine of the unceasing, undiminishing, and hopeless torture of the wicked. If any man thinks he can throw one ray of light on this dark problem, welcome him as a brother, and listen to him lovingly, if haply he may have a message from God; and whatever decision you may come to, hold it reverently, and modestly, being always ready to receive light and help from every quarter. Whatever darkness may rest upon the destiny of the wicked, it must be a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God; yet, seeing that His mercy endureth for ever, it is better to fall into the hands of God, than into the hands of men. One thing is certain; those who are in Christ can never die! [i.e. forever.] That is the blessed truth- that is the glorious gospel! Able and honest men may differ widely as to the destiny of the finally impenitent, but there can be no substantial difference of opinion as to the future of those who know the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings and the power of Christ’s resurrection. Do not be harsh with any man who differs from you; say in your hearts, the Judge of the whole earth cannot but do right. – Bible Echo.

Reposted with permission from Afterlife.co.nz

Conditional Immortality and Natural Immortality Compared

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 03:34:00 +0000

Conditional Immortality and Natural Immortality Compared

From, “What Is Conditional Immortality?” (Miscellaneous Comparisons with the Greek Doctrine of Natural Immortality) by Pastor Sidney A. Hatch, Brief Bible Studies: Vol. 20, No. 2, p.9-18.

Many times, over the years, I have remarked to people that I believe in conditional immortality. However, oftentimes, the response has simply been, “What is conditional immortality?” Perhaps, then, a few words of explanation will be in order.

There are, essentially, only two views of man’s nature, the primitive Biblical view, and the ancient philosophical view. The primitive Biblical view is the foundation of the doctrine of conditional immortality. The ancient philosophical view may be called natural or innate immortality.

Natural or innate immortality says that man is born with something immortal in him. Conditional immortality says just the opposite, there is nothing in man that is immortal.

Natural immortality says that this something in man lives on after death. It may be called “soul, spirit, ghost,” or something else, but it lives on as a conscious, thinking, immaterial entity.

Conditional immortality says that nothing lives on after death. The body returns to dust, and the “spirit” or “breath of life” returns to God who gave it (Eccles. 12:7). This spirit or breath of life is not a person or conscious entity. Rather, it is simply the life-force in man.

Natural immortality says that after death, during the so-called intermediate state, man’s “soul” or “immaterial entity” goes somewhere. Christians who profess faith in natural immortality say the soul goes to heaven, hell, or purgatory.

Others suggest various places (and here the doctrine of natural immortality fragments into many pieces): Elysium, Valhalla, the underworld of hades, a happy hunting ground, etc., etc.

Still other believers in natural immortality solve the problem by saying that the soul is reincarnated in another living creature, a human being, or one of the lower animals.

Conditional immortality says that a “soul” is a person. During the immediate state, his resting place is the grave, and, as God Himself says, he returns to dust (Gen. 3:19). But the Scriptures also describe this immediate state as “sleep” (Jn. 11:11: Lk. 8:52; I Thess. 4:13). This is because it will be interrupted someday by the return of Christ and the resurrection (awakening) of the dead.

Natural immortality claims to believe in the resurrection of the dead. But, in reality, its resurrection is simply the reincarnation someday of a man’s “soul” or “ghost” in a body.

According to conditional immortality, resurrection is that great moment when a re-creation takes place. The individual is brought back from the dust and “formed alive” again (Jn. 5:21; Rom. 8:11; I Cor. 15:22).

Natural immortality says that in the eternal state “lost souls” live (burn) in the fires of hell forever. This idea is so incomprehensibly horrible that some believers in natural immortality tone it down to “eternal separation” from God.

Conditional immortality says that “death” means death, the loss and deprivation of all life (Rom. 6:23). Since there is no such thing as “an immortal soul,” there is no such thing as eternal torment. In the judgment, the lost person is simply destroyed. This is the meaning of “perish” in John 3:16. This is the “second death” (Rev. 20:14).

Conditional immortality recognises that such a thing as the eternal torment of humans never entered the mind of God (Jer. 7:31). It is contrary to His holiness which includes a perfect justice (Deut. 32:4; Ps. 7:9; Rom. 2:5; I Pet. 1:16).

Natural immortality says that “hell” is a spirit-world of the dammed. “Sheol” and “hades” are regions of sorrow where the wicked are fully conscious. Gehenna, the Valley of Hinnom where the refuse of Jerusalem was burned, denotes or signifiesthe place of eternal torment. Eternal torment, we are told, is the second death.

Conditional immortality says that “hell,” that is “sheol” and “hades,” are the grave. The grave– not a spirit-world– is the realm of the dead. Gehenna represents the destruction of the wicked, not their eternal torment.

Natural immortality creates a problem for itself when it says that the second death is eternal torment or eternal separation from God. Christ died for our sins, but He did not endure eternal torment. Who, then, has fully paid the penalty for sin? No one, according to natural immortality.

Conditional immortality has no such problems. “The wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23), and “Christ died for our sins” (I Cor. 15:3). Full atonement has been made! The blood [=death] of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanses us from all sin (I Jn. 1:7).

Throughout history, natural immortality has had a tragic effect on society, organized Christianity, and even the human psyche. Traditionally, believers in natural immortality have persecuted those who rejected their doctrines.

Queen Mary of England (“Bloody Mary,” 1516-1558) burned heretics at the stake. She argued that the “souls” of heretics are hereafter to be eternally burning in hell. Hence, she added, there can be nothing more proper than for her to imitate the divine vengeance by burning them on earth (J.H.Petingell, The Unspeakable Gift, p. 278).

Even today, I have observed, believers in natural immortality can become very upset, even angry, when told that there is no such thing as eternal torment. Why, we may ask, this inexplicable loyalty to such a horrible doctrine? Certainly Satan would rejoice in the eternal torment of a victim, but not God, or a child of God.

The doctrines of conditional immortality are conducive to a Christian life that is kind, loving, and tolerant. The God of the conditionalist is both just and merciful, not a monster or fiend operating a torture chamber for all eternity somewhere in the universe.

The conditionalist often finds himself in a “minority status.” He recognises the practical need for tolerance, that men may live together in peace, and have liberty to study the Scriptures.

Natural immortality says that a person’s eternal destiny is settled and begins at death. He therefore begins his punishment before he appears before God to be judged. Obviously, a judgment day has been reduced to a judicial farce. (Theories of a purgatory only serve to complicate this!)

Conditional Immortality says that future judgment for all men takes place after a resurrection from the dead. While there may be different judgments, they all take place after one is raised from the dead (I Cor. 15:21-28; 2 Cor. 5:10; Rev. 20:4-6, 11-15).

Natural immortality says that salvation is by faith in Christ. However, by this it means that at death a Christian’s “soul” will go to heaven and not to hell. Christ is, therefore, the umpire or director of a great host of “immortal souls” which must, at death, travel through the invisible world, en route to heaven or hell.

Conditional immortality believes in salvation by faith in Christ. Christ alone is the worker of resurrection and the giver of immortal resurrection life (Jn. 11:25). At Christ’s return the believer is raised from the dead and given immortality. Conditional immortality is based on 1 Corinthians 15:57, “But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory [over death and the grave] through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Natural immortality does not know when a person receives his “immortal soul” or natural immortality. Is it handed down from generation to generation (“traducianism”)? Or is it created in the individual at conception, during pregnacy, or at birth (“creationism”)?

Conditional immortality knows exactly when a person receives immortality: It will be in the resurrection at the second coming of Christ– and not before. At that moment, this mortal will “put on immortality” (1 Cor. 15:54).

Natural immortality cancels out the need for Christ’s return and the resurrection of the dead. If there is no return of Christ and resurrection of the dead, it will still be all right, for the “soul” is enjoying the bliss of heaven!

Conditional immortality makes the return of Christ and the resurrection of the dead an absolute imperative. It agrees with Paul that if the dead rise not, “then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished” (1 Cor. 15:16-18).

Natural immortality says that man is worth saving because he has an “immortal soul” or he is an “eternal spirit.” He offers to God his “immortal soul” as a head-start on immortality and eternal life. Thus natural immortality compromises the grace of God.

Conditional immortality says that man is made of the soil of the earth and is a “living soul” (Gen. 2:7), not an “immortal soul.” As Abraham said, man is “but dust and ashes” (Gen. 18:27). He has nothing in himself to offer to God; he is utterly unworthy, both as to person and works (Isa. 64:6). He is completely dependent on Christ’s work on the cross, and God’s love and grace, to save him. Conditional immortality, therefore, is a message of pure grace.

Natural immortality exalts man to the point of blasphemy. The Scripture says that “[God] only hath immortality” (1 Tim. 6:16). Thus natural immortality claims for man a divine attribute. It comes close to the sin of Lucifer who said, “I will be like the most High” (Isai. 14:14).

Natural immortality cannot claim that man received his immortality at creation. The Hebrew term for “living soul” is also used of all the other animals at creation. According to the Hebrew text, they too are “living souls” (Gen. 1:20-21, 24, 30; 2:19). They too have the same “breath of life” or “spirit” that was breathed into man (Gen. 7:22).

Nor can natural immortality claim that “image of God” means that man is, in some way, immortal. In Genesis 1:26, the Hebrew words for “image” and “likeness” (tzelem and demuth) refer to form, shape, or physical likeness, not to some spiritual or moral attribute in man. Compare also such passages as 1 Corithians 11:7 and James 3:9.

Conditional Immortality recognises that only God has immortality (1 Tim. 6:16). It is an attribute of His essence or being. Any other creature or person that has immortality–or will have it–receives it from God. Jesus our Lord, the Son of God, received it at His resurrection from the dead.

Natural immortality opens the door to all sorts of vagaries, such as spiritualism, invocation of the saints, transmigration of souls, reincarnation, etc. If the dead are alive somewhere in the universe, perhaps man can communicate with them!

Conditional immortality closes the door on all such vagaries. The dead are totally unconscious in their graves. They “know not anything” (Eccles. 9:5); their thoughts have perished (Ps. 146:4).

Nevertheless, we shall see our loved ones again some day. This is very much a part of the hope of conditional immortality. However, this reunion will not be effected by our dying and going to heaven. Rather, it will be when Jesus comes to earth again: “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with Lord” (1 Thess. 4:16-17).

Natural immortality is the very thing which the serpent in Eden offered to Eve: “Ye shall not surely die . . . ye shall be as gods (or God)” (Gen. 3:4-5). It is, essentially, that blindness with which “the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not” (2 Cor. 4:4).

Conditional immortality rejects the words of the serpent as a lie. By way of contrast, in the doctrine of conditional immortality, “the light of the glorious gospel of Christ . . . hath shined in our hearts” (2 Cor. 4:4,6). The gospel of Christ — life and immortality only through faith in Him — is utterly irreconcilable with the lie of the devil.

Natural immortality says that a Christian has the light of the gospel in his “soul” or immaterial entity; his “soul” has been “saved.” It identifies a person with his “soul,” the “soul” is of eternal worth. It is that part of a man which, through the brain, thinks.

Conditional immortality recognizes that we are “earthen vessels.” It identifies a person with his body. Christ, when raising the dead, spoke to the body, not to an immaterial entity. Man thinks in his brain, for God can create an instrument that thinks.

Conditional immortality or life only in Christ is, therefore, the light of the gospel. It is “this treasure in earthen vessels” (2 Cor. 4:7). We are the “earthen vessels”!

Natural immortality was the message of the Pharisees of Jesus’ day. They believed the Greek view of the immortality of the soul. Josephus tells us this.

Jesus believed and taught conditional immortality. He said that Lazarus and Jairus’ daughter were asleep (Jn. 11:11; Lk. 8:52). He said the dead are in the graves, whence they shall “come forth” (Jn. 5:28-29). He presented Himself as the only source of immortality (Jn. 11:25-26).

Natural immortality came into the western world, and eventually into Christendom, through the teachings of Greek philosophers, especially Plato and his successors. It was part of that original “modernism” (Greco-Roman philosophy) which corrupted early Christianity.

Plato believed and taught that men possessed a personal immortality. The human soul was both immortal and divine. In its disembodied state, it shared the life of the gods (article “Plato,” Encyclopaedia Britannica).

I have observed that believers in natural immortality sometimes have recourse to Plato when defending their views about “the soul.” They seem to be unaware of his personal life. The “Symposium,” which, we are told, is the key to Plato’s philosophy, is supposed to be about “love.” But it is all about homosexuality, especially pederasty (cf. John Jay Chapman, Lucian, Plato, and Greek Morals, pp. 121-36).

Conditional Immortality comes only from the Word of God. Its message may be found from Genesis to Revelation. It is the true “orthodoxy” or “fundamentalism” of Scripture. It is mindful of Paul’s warning, “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit” (Col. 2:8).

Conditional immortality utterly rejects the views of Plato regarding the nature of man. It derives its views from pure and unquestionable sources: A holy God, His inspired Word, and a sinless Saviour.

Ironically, the views of natural immortality are sometimes described as “fundamentalism.” This is due to its emphasis on “soul salvation,” heaven or hell at death, eternal torment, etc. Actually, however, it is a contemporary version of that original modernism mentioned above.

Conditional immortality is called “heresy” by some, “liberalism” by others. This is because it takes the words of Scripture at face value, and does not impose on them a philosophical meaning. The gospel issue is really “life” or “death,” not better housing in eternity! “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 6:23).

Conditional immortality, then, is the true and original orthodoxy. It is an effort to lay aside those aspects of philosophy which have corrupted Christianity, and return to the simple truths of the Bible.

A fervent preaching of the doctrines of natural immortality can make a preacher or religious leader very popular. It may seem strange, but it is not to be unexpected. people like to be told that there is no death, it is only, as the poet Longfellow once wrote, “transition.” The naivete of Eve has never died away (1 Tim. 2:14).

In times of grief, natural immortality offers a momentary comfort. Death is portrayed as a “friend,” and the grave as the portal to glory. But in doing so, it forfeits the triumph of the Christian hope of resurrection (1 Cor. 15:57).

Conditional immortality, on the other hand, can produce a mixed response. In my own experience, no other message has provoked such varied reactions, from enthusiastic interest to open hostility.

After all, the devil hates this message. It contradicts his false but soothing doctrine, “Ye shall not surely die.” Opposition, as in Jesus’ day, can arise from those in position of leadership who are anxious to maintain the traditions of the elders.

Also, the preacher of conditionalism may expect to be misrepresented as a “soul sleeper” and annihilationist.” But the Scriptures simply say that the wicked will “perish” or be destroyed. And a “soul” or “ghost” does not sleep in death, people sleep! “Lazarus sleepeth,” Jesus said.

But there are great consolations, even moments of excitement, in presenting life and immortality only in Christ. It can be true today, as in Jesus’ day: “The common people heard him gladly” Mk. 12: 37). There will be those who prove to be “good ground.” They will hear the word, receive it, and bring forth fruit (Mk. 4:20).

The conditionalist pastor can look at his flock, and say, as Paul to the Ephesian elders, “I am pure from the blood of all men. For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God” Acts 20:26-27). Conditional immortality is the gospel for the strong, not the fearful.

Conditional immortality recognises the truth of Paul’s words, “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death” (1 Cor. 15:26). John wrote that in the new heavens and new earth “there shall be no more death.” God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be neither sorrow, nor crying, nor pain (Rev. 21:4).

Conditional immortality is the only true Scriptural comfort in time of death. The dead are “asleep” and know nothing of the passage of time. Therefore, to die, and someday be in the resurrection, is like going to bed at night, and waking up in the morning. “Joy cometh in the morning” (Ps. 30:5).

There is another contrast between the doctrines of natural immortality and those of conditional immortality which should be mentioned: Natural immortality has two hopes, conditional immortality has one.

Natural immortality’s first hope is to go to heaven at death. Its second hope is to be re-embodied later at the return of Christ. Thus natural immortality tries to combine the Greek hope of immortal souls going somewhere at death with the Christian hope of resurrection.

Conditional immortality’s one hope is the return of Christ and the resurrection of the dead. This is in keeping with the principle established by Paul: “There is . . . one hope of your calling” (Eph. 4:4). Jesus said, “I will come again” (Jn. 14:3). The conditionalist waits patiently for Him.

There is “a great gulf fixed” between conditional immortality and natural immortality. They are actually two different religions. Yet there are those who lamely excuse themselves by asking. “Is it really important?” To this argument, we ask, “What communion hath light with darkness?” (2 Cor. 6:14).

For the first few years of my ministry, I vigorously preached the doctrines of the natural immortality of man. But, through personal study of the Scriptures, God changed my heart and mind. It was then that someone informed me that my new faith was “conditional immortality.” The term was new to me, but I knew its message was true!

Reposted with permission from Afterlife.co.nz

Is Death Better by Far?

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 03:32:00 +0000

Is Death Better by Far?

First published in “From Death To Life”, Issue 27, p3

Once again we must ask, on the subject of the afterlife, why was it that the only comfort Paul offered the Thessalonian Church was that the dead in Christ would be resurrected when Jesus comes again? (1Thess. 4:13-18). Likewise, in 1 Corinthians 15, if Paul believed that the departed go straight to heavenly bliss why does he put forward no hope other than that of the resurrection?

Looking at Philippians 1:20-24 in context, we note the following:

1. It is in Paul’s body (not his “soul”) that he hopes Christ will be exalted, whether by life or death (20);

2. The “gain” Paul has in mind is first and foremost that to the cause of Christ through his dying a martyr’s death (20), then that which is to Paul personally from his martyrdom (21). He no doubt aspired to be like the many “others”, the unnamed heroes of the faith, who are mentioned in Hebrews 11, who “were tortured and refused to be released so that they might gain a better resurrection.” (See Heb. 11:35);

3. So elsewhere Paul speaks of his desire to share in Christ’s sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so at length to attain to the resurrection from the dead (3:10-11);

4. In 2Tim. 4:6-8 too Paul speaks of his imminent death as a “departure”: beyond death however it is the “Day” of Christ’s return that he (along with everyone else) looks to;

5. Throughout the book of Philippians it is clearly the resurrection of the dead at Christ’s return upon which Paul fastens his hope: It is only then that “our lowly bodies … will be like his glorious body” (3:20-21).

Paul speaks not of his “soul” departing but of his whole self. His use of the term, “depart”, suggests a journey in which the beginning is death and the end is being with Christ. It is this end which is “better by far.”

Paul will be with Christ after death, but Philippians 1:23 tells us nothing as to how or when he will be with Christ. Elsewhere Paul makes it clear: It is by resurrection.

Meanwhile either by the way he lives his life, or by the way he dies a martyr’s death, Paul aims to exalt Christ.

This should be our aim too!

Reposted with permission from Afterlife.co.nz