GATHERED TO HIS PEOPLE.
The pleasing doctrine that man can never die, though unfortunate in its
parentage, is very tenacious of its life. In treating this subject in
previous chapters, we have found that the record of man’s creation
brings to view no immortal element as entering into his being; that the
Bible, in its use of the terms immortal and immortality, never employs
them to express an attribute inherent in man’s nature; that no
description of soul and spirit, and no signification of the original
words, will sustain the present popular definition of these terms; that
the soul and spirit, though spoken of in the Bible, in the aggregate,
seventeen hundred times, are never once said to be immortal or
never-dying; and that no text in which these words are supposed to be
employed in such a manner as to show that they signify an
ever-conscious, immortal principle, can possibly be interpreted to
sustain such a doctrine.
Yet the dogma of natural immortality, very reluctantly yields the
ground. To a twentieth proof text it will cling even the more
tenaciously, if the preceding nineteen are all swept away. Besides the
texts already noticed, there are a few other passages behind which it
seeks refuge; and with alacrity we follow it into all its hiding-places,
confident that in no passage in all the Bible can it find a shelter, but
that into every one which it claims as its own, it has entered, not by
right of possession, but as an intruder and a usurper.
Behind the obituaries of the patriarchs it seeks to shield itself. It is
claimed, for instance, that the death of Abraham is recorded in such a
manner as to show that his conscious existence did not cease with his
earthly life. We might justly insist on their going farther back and
taking the recorded close of the lives of the antediluvian patriarchs as
the basis of their argument. One of these, Enoch, was translated to
Heaven without seeing death; and all the others, according to popular
belief, went to Heaven just as effectually, through death. But how
different is their record. Of Enoch it is said that he “was not; for God
took him;” while of the others it is said, And they “died.” Surely these
two records do not mean the same thing, and Enoch, whom God took, and
who is consequently alive in Heaven, must be, judging from the record,
in a different condition from those who died.
But to return to the case of Abraham. The record of his death reads:
“Then Abraham gave up the ghost, and died in a good old age, an old man
and full of years, and was gathered to his people.” On this verse,
Landis, p. 130, thus remarks:--
“What then is this _gathering_to the body or the soul? It cannot refer
to the body, for while his body was buried in the cave of Macpelah, in
Canaan, his fathers were buried afar off; Terah, in Haran, in
Mesopotamia, and the rest of his ancestors far off in Chaldea. Of
course, then, this gathering relates not to the body, but to the soul;
he was gathered to the assembly of the blessed, and thus entered his
habitation.”
To show how gratuitous, not to say preposterous, is this conclusion, we
raise a query on two points: 1. Does the expression, “gathered to his
people,” denote that he went to dwell in conscious intercourse with
them? 2. Were his ancestors such righteous persons that they went to
Heaven when they died? In answering these queries, the last shall be the
first. It is a significant fact that Abraham had to be _separated_ from
his kindred and his _father’s house_, in order that God might make him a
special subject of his providence. And in Josh. 24:2, we are plainly
told that his ancestors were idolaters; for they served other gods. Such
being their character, death would send them, according to the popular
view, to the regions of the damned. At the time, then, of Abraham’s
death, they were writhing amid the lurid waves of the lake of fire. And
when Abraham was gathered to them, if it was in the sense which the
theology of our day teaches, he, too, was consigned to the flames of
hell! Oh! to what absurdities will men suffer themselves to be led
blindfold by a petted theory. God had said to Abram, Gen. 15:15: “And
thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good
old age.” Was this the consoling promise that he should go to hell in
peace in a good old age? And is the record of his death an assertion
that he has his place among the damned!? Yes! if the immaterialist
theory be correct. Children of Abraham, arise! and with one mouth
vindicate your “righteous father” from the foul aspersion. Renounce a
theory as far from Heaven-born which compels you thus to look upon the
“father of the faithful.”
Does, then, the expression, “gathered to his people,” mean his personal,
conscious intercourse with them? If man has an immortal soul which lives
in death, it does; and if it does, Abraham is in hell. There is no way
of avoiding this conclusion, except by repudiating the idea that man has
such a soul, and denying his conscious happiness or misery while in a
state of death.
But how, then, could he be gathered to his people? Answer: He could go
into the grave into which they had gone, into the state of death, in
which they were held. Jacob said, when mourning for Joseph whom he
supposed dead: “I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning.” Not
that he expected to go into the same locality, or the same grave; for he
did not suppose that his son, being, as he then thought, devoured by
wild beasts, was in the grave literally at all; but by the grave he
evidently meant a state of death; and as his son had been violently
deprived of life, he too would go down mourning into the state of death;
and this he calls going unto his son. In Acts 13:36, Paul, speaking of
David, says that he “was _laid unto his fathers_.” This all must
acknowledge to be the exact equivalent of being “gathered to his
people;” then the apostle goes on and adds, “_and saw corruption_.” That
which was laid unto his fathers, or was gathered to his people, saw
corruption. Men may labor, if they choose, to refer it to the immortal
soul; but in that way they do it a very doubtful favor; for the success
of their argument is the destruction of their theory; and the soul is
shown to be something which is perishable and corruptible in its nature.
The peaceful death of our father Abraham furnishes no proof of an
immortal soul in man, and from his hallowed resting-place no arguments
for such a dogma can be drawn.
Another text may properly be considered in this connection:--
Ps. 90:10: “The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if
by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength
labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off and we fly away.”
On the authority of this text it is claimed that something flies away
when our strength is cut off in death; that that something is the
immortal soul, and that if it flies away, it is therefore conscious; and
if it thus survives the stroke of death, it is therefore immortal:
rather a numerous array of conclusions, and rather weighty ones, to be
drawn from the three words, “we fly away.” Let us look at David’s
argument. The reason given why our strength is labor and sorrow, is
because it is soon cut off and we fly away. If, now, our flying away
means the going away of a conscious soul, into Heaven, for instance, if
we are righteous, his argument stands thus: “Yet is their strength labor
and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and _we go to Heaven_.” Singular
reasoning, this! But his argument is all consistent if by flying away he
means that we go into the grave, where Solomon assures us that there is
no work, wisdom, knowledge, nor device. Let us not abuse the psalmist’s
reasoning.
The text plainly tells us what flies away; namely, _we_ fly away. We is
a personal pronoun and includes the whole person. According to Buck’s
assertion that man is composed of two _essential_ elements, soul and
body, the man is not complete without them both; and the pronoun, we,
could not be used to express either of them separately. The text does
not intimate any separation; it does not say that the soul flies away,
or the spirit flies away; but _we_, in our undivided personality, fly
away. To what place does the body, an essential part of the we, fly? To
the grave, and there only.
This is confirmed by Eccl. 9:3: “The heart of the sons of men is full of
evil; and madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that
they go to the dead.” Had this text read, “And after that they go away,”
it would have been exactly parallel to Ps. 90:10; for no essential
difference can be claimed between going and flying. But here it is
expressly told where we go: we go to the _grave_. What is omitted in Ps.
90:10, is here supplied.
We may also add that the Hebrew word _gooph_, rendered “fly away,”
signifies, according to Gesenius, “First, to cover, spec. with wings,
feathers, as birds cover their young. Second, to fly, properly of birds.
Third, to cover over, wrap in darkness. Fourth, to overcome with
darkness, to faint, to faint away.”
The idea is plainly this: Though our days be fourscore years, yet is
their strength labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we sink
away, go to the grave, and are wrapped in the darkness of death. Viewed
thus, David’s language is consistent, and his reasoning harmonious; but
his language we pervert and his logic we destroy, the moment we try to
make his words prove the separation from the body, of a conscious soul
at death.