THE SOULS UNDER THE ALTAR.
In Rev. 6:9-11, is another instance where the word, soul, is used in a
manner which many take to be proof that there is in man a separate
entity, conscious in death, and capable in a disembodied state of
performing all the acts, and exercising all the emotions, which pertain
to this life. The verses referred to read:--
“And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls
of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which
they held. And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord,
holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that
dwell on the earth? And white robes were given unto every one of them;
and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little
season, until their fellow-servants also and their brethren, that should
be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.”
On the hypothesis of the popular view, what conclusions must we draw
from this testimony?
1. It is assumed that these souls were in Heaven; then the altar under
which John saw them must have been the altar of incense, as that is the
only altar brought to view in Heaven. Rev. 8:3. But the altar spoken of
in the text is evidently the altar of sacrifice upon which they were
slain. Therefore to represent them as under the altar of incense, which
was never used for sacrifice, is both incongruous and unscriptural.
2. We must conclude that they were in a state of confinement, shut up
under the altar--not a condition we would naturally associate with the
perfection of heavenly bliss.
3. Solomon says of the dead, that their love, their hatred, and their
envy, is now perished. Eccl. 9:6. But that makes no difference; for here
are the souls of the holy martyrs still smarting with resentment against
their persecutors, and calling for vengeance upon their devoted heads.
Is this altogether consistent? Would not the superlative bliss of Heaven
swallow up all resentment against those who had done them this good
though they meant them harm, and lead them to bless rather than curse
the hand that had hastened them thither?
But further, the same view which puts these souls into Heaven, puts the
souls of the wicked, at the termination of this mortal life, into the
lake of fire, where they are racked with unutterable and unceasing
anguish, in full view of all the heavenly host. In proof of this, the
parable of the rich man and Lazarus is strenuously urged. But is it so?
If it is not, then the popular exposition of that parable must be
abandoned. But that supposed stronghold will not readily be surrendered,
so it is proper to look at the bearing it has upon the case before us.
According, then, to the orthodox view, the persecutors of these souls
were even then, or certainly soon would be, enveloped in the flames of
hell, right before their eyes, every fiber of their being quivering with
a keenness of torture which no language can express, and of which no
mind can adequately conceive.
Here they were, their agony full in view of these souls of the martyrs,
and their piercing shrieks of infinite and hopeless woe ringing in their
ears; for the rich man and Abraham, you know, could converse together
across the gulf. And was not the sight of all this woe enough to glut
the most insatiate vengeance? Is there a fiend in hell who could
manifest the malevolence of planning and praying for greater vengeance
than this? Yet these souls are represented, even under these
circumstances, as calling upon God to avenge their blood on their
persecutors, and saying “How long?” as if chiding the tardy movements of
Providence, in commencing, or intensifying, their torments. Such is the
character which the common view attributes to these holy martyrs, and
such the spirit with which it clothes a system of religion the chief
injunction of which is to forgive, and the chief law of which is mercy.
Does it find indorsement in any breast in which there remains a drop of
even the milk of human kindness?
4. These souls pray that their _blood_ may be avenged--an article which
the uncompounded, invisible, and immaterial soul, as generally
understood, is not supposed to possess.
These are some of the difficulties we meet, some of the camels we have
to swallow, in taking down the popular view.
But it is urged that these souls must be conscious; for they cry to God.
How easily our expositors forget that language has any literal use, when
they wish it to be figurative, or that it is ever used as a figure, when
they wish it to be literal. There is supposed to be such a figure of
speech as personification, in which, under certain conditions, life,
action, and intelligence, are attributed to inanimate objects. Thus the
blood of Abel is said to have cried to God from the ground. Gen. 4:9,
10. The stone cried out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber
answered it. Hab. 2:11. The hire of the laborers, kept back by fraud,
cried; and the cry entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. James
5:4. So these souls could cry, in the same sense, and yet be no more
conscious than Abel’s blood, the stone, the beam, or the laborer’s hire.
So incongruous is the popular view that Albert Barnes makes haste to set
himself right on the record as follows:--
“We are not to suppose that this _literally_ occurred, and that John
actually saw the souls of the martyrs beneath the altar--for the whole
representation is symbolical; nor are we to suppose that the injured and
the wronged in Heaven actually pray for vengeance on those who wronged
them, or that the redeemed in Heaven will continue to pray with
reference to things on the earth; but it may be fairly inferred from
this that there will be _as real_ a remembrance of the wrongs of the
persecuted, the injured, and the oppressed, _as if_ such a prayer was
offered there; and that the oppressor has as much to dread from the
divine vengeance, _as if_ those whom he has injured should cry in Heaven
to the God who hears prayer, and who takes vengeance.”--_Notes on Rev.
6._
But it is said that white robes were given them; hence it is further
urged that they must be conscious. But this no more follows than it does
from the fact that they cried. How was it? They had gone down to the
grave in the most ignominious manner. Their lives had been
misrepresented, their reputations tarnished, their names defamed, their
motives maligned, and their graves covered with shame and reproach, as
containing the dishonored dust of the most vile and despicable
characters. Thus the church of Rome, which then molded the sentiments of
the principal nations of the earth, spared no pains to make her victims
an abhorring unto all flesh.
But the Reformation commences its work. It soon begins to be seen that
the Romish church is the corrupt and disreputable party, and those
against whom it vents its rage are the good, the pure, and the true. The
work goes on among the most enlightened nations, the reputation of the
church going down, and that of the martyrs coming up, until the
corruptions of the papal abomination are fully exposed, and that huge
system of iniquity stands before the world in all its naked deformity,
while the martyrs are vindicated from all the aspersions under which
that Antichristian church had sought to bury them. Then it was seen that
they had suffered, not for being vile and criminal, but “for the word of
God and for the testimony which they held.” Then their praises were
sung, their virtues admired, their fortitude applauded, their names
honored, and their memory cherished. And thus it is even to this day.
White robes have thus been given unto every one of them.
The whole trouble on such passages as this we conceive to arise from the
theological definition of the word soul: From that definition, one is
led to suppose that this text speaks of an immaterial, invisible,
immortal essence in man, which soars into its coveted freedom on the
death of its hindrance and clog, the mortal body. No instance of the
occurrence of the word in the original Hebrew or Greek will sustain such
a definition. It oftenest means life; and is not unfrequently rendered,
person. It applies to the dead as well as to the living, as may be seen
by reference to Gen. 2:7, where the word, “living,” need not have been
expressed were life an inseparable attribute of the soul; and to Num.
19:13, where the Hebrew Concordance reads, “dead soul.”
The reader is also referred to the previous chapter on Soul and Spirit.
From the definitions there given, it is evident that the word soul may
mean, and the context requires that it here should mean, simply the
martyrs, those who had been slain; the expression, “the souls of them,”
being used to designate the whole person. They were represented to John
as having been slain upon the altar of papal sacrifice on this earth,
and lying dead beneath it. So Dr. Clarke, on this passage, says, “The
altar is upon earth, not in Heaven.” They certainly were not alive when
John saw them under the fifth seal; for he again brings to view the same
company in almost the same language, and assures us that the first time
they live after their martyrdom is at the resurrection of the just. Rev.
20:4-6. Lying there, victims of papal blood-thirstiness and oppression,
the great wrong, of which their sacrifice was the evidence, called upon
God for vengeance. They cried, or their blood cried, even as Abel’s
blood cried to God from the ground.
Thus another stronghold of the immortality of the soul must be
surrendered to a harmonious interpretation, and the plain teaching, of
the word of God.