2:46_—“_breaking bread at home_”—where we have οἶκος, not οἶκία,
οἶκος is not a private house, but a “worship‐room,” and that the
phrase should be translated “breaking bread from one worship‐room
to another,” or “in various worship‐rooms.” This meaning seems
very apt in _Acts 5:42_—“_And every day, in the temple and at
home_ [rather, ‘_in various worship‐rooms_’], they ceased not to
teach and to preach Jesus as the Christ”; _8:3_—“_But Saul laid
waste the church, entering into every house_ [rather, ‘_every
worship‐room_’] _and dragging men and women committed them to
prison_”; _Rom. 16:5_—“_salute the church that is in their house_
[rather, ‘_in their worship‐room_’]”; _Titus 1:11_—“_men who
overthrow whole houses_ [rather, ‘_whole worship‐rooms_’],
_teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre’s sake._”
_Per contra_, however, see _1 Cor. 11:34_—“_let him eat at home,_”
where οἶκος is contrasted with the place of meeting; so also _1
Cor. 14:35_ and _Acts 20:20_, where οἶκος seems to mean a private
house.
The celebration of the Lord’s Supper in each family by itself is
not recognized in the New Testament. Stanley, in Nineteenth
Century, May, 1878, tells us that as infant communion is forbidden
in the Western Church, and evening communion is forbidden by the
Roman Church, so solitary communion is forbidden by the English
Church, and death‐bed communion by the Scottish Church. E. G.
Robinson: “No single individual in the New Testament ever
celebrates the Lord’s Supper by himself.” Mrs. Browning recognized
the essentially social nature of the ordinance, when she said that
truth was like the bread at the Sacrament—to be passed on. In this
the Supper gives us a type of the proper treatment of all the
goods of life, both temporal and spiritual.
Dr. Norman Fox, Christ in the Daily Meal, claims that the Lord’s
Supper is no more an exclusively church ordinance than is singing
or prayer; that the command to observe it was addressed, not to an
organized church, but only to individuals; that every meal in the
home was to be a Lord’s Supper, because Christ was remembered in
it. But we reply that Paul’s letter with regard to the abuses of
the Lord’s Supper was addressed, not to individuals, but to “_the
church of God which is at Corinth._” (_1 Cor. 1:2_). Paul reproves
the Corinthians because in the Lord’s Supper each ate without
thought of others: “_What, have ye not houses to eat and to drink
in? or despise ye the church of God, and put them to shame that
have not?_” (_11:22_). Each member having appeased his hunger at
home, the members of the church “_come together to eat_”
(_11:30_), as the spiritual body of Christ. All this shows that
the celebration of the Lord’s Supper was not an appendage to every
ordinary meal.
In _Acts 20:7_—“_upon the first day of the week, when we were
gathered together to break bread, Paul discoursed with them_”—the
natural inference is that the Lord’s Supper was a sacred rite,
observed apart from any ordinary meal, and accompanied by
religious instruction. Dr. Fox would go back of these later
observances to the original command of our Lord. He would
eliminate all that we do not find in Mark, the earliest gospel.
But this would deprive us of the Sermon on the Mount, the parable
of the Prodigal Son, and the discourses of the fourth gospel.
McGiffert gives A. D. 52, as the date of Paul’s first letter to
the Corinthians, and this ante‐dates Mark’s gospel by at least
thirteen years. Paul’s account of the Lord’s Supper at Corinth is
therefore an earlier authority than Mark.
(_f_) The responsibility of seeing that the ordinance is properly
administered rests with the church as a body; and the pastor is, in this
matter, the proper representative and organ of the church. In cases of
extreme exigency, however, as where the church has no pastor and no
ordained minister can be secured, it is competent for the church to
appoint one from its own number to administer the ordinance.
_1 Cor. 11:2, 23_—“_Now I praise you that ye remember me in all
things, and hold fast the traditions, even as I delivered them to
you.... For I received of the Lord that which also I delivered
unto you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which he was
betrayed took bread._” Here the responsibility of administering
the Lord’s Supper is laid upon the body of believers.
(_g_) The frequency with which the Lord’s Supper is to be administered is
not indicated either by the N. T. precept or by uniform N. T. example. We
have instances both of its daily and of its weekly observance. With
respect to this, as well as with respect to the accessories of the
ordinance, the church is to exercise a sound discretion.
_Acts 2:46_—“_And day by day, continuing stedfastly with one
accord in the temple, and breaking bread at home_ [or perhaps,
‘_in various worship‐rooms_’]”; _20:7_—“_And upon the first day of
the week, when we were gathered together to break bread._” In
1878, thirty‐nine churches of the Establishment in London held
daily communion; in two churches it was held twice each day. A few
churches of the Baptist faith in England and America celebrate the
Lord’s Supper on each Lord’s day. Carlstadt would celebrate the
Lord’s Supper only in companies of twelve, and held also that
every bishop must marry. Reclining on couches, and meeting in the
evening, are not commanded; and both, by their inconvenience,
might in modern times counteract the design of the ordinance.
3. The Symbolism of the Lord’s Supper.
The Lord’s Supper sets forth, in general, the death of Christ as the
sustaining power of the believer’s life.
A. Expansion of this statement.
(_a_) It symbolizes the death of Christ for our sins.
_1 Cor. 11:26_—“_For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink the
cup, ye proclaim the Lord’s death till he come_”; _cf._ _Mark
14:24_—“_This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for
many_”—the blood upon which the covenant between God and Christ,
and so between God and us who are one with Christ, from eternity
past was based. The Lord’s Supper reminds us of the covenant which
ensures our salvation, and of the atonement upon which the
covenant was based; _cf._ _Heb. 13:20_—“_blood of an eternal
covenant._”
Alex. McLaren: “The suggestion of a violent death, implied in the
_doubling_ of the symbols, by which the body is separated from
that of the blood, and still further implied in the _breaking_ of
the bread, is made prominent in the words in reference to the cup.
It symbolizes the blood of Jesus which is ‘shed.’ That shed blood
is covenant blood. By it the New Covenant, of which Jeremiah had
prophesied, one article of which was, ‘Their sins and iniquities I
will remember no more,’ is sealed and ratified, not for Israel
only but for an indefinite ‘many,’ which is really equivalent to
all. Could words more plainly declare that Christ’s death was a
sacrifice? Can we understand it, according to his own
interpretation of it, unless we see in his words here a reference
to his previous words (_Mat. 20:28_) and recognize that in
shedding his blood ‘for many,’ he ‘gave his life a ransom for
many’? The Lord’s Supper is the standing witness, voiced by Jesus
himself, that he regarded his death as the very centre of his
work, and that he regarded it not merely as a martyrdom, but as a
sacrifice by which he put away sins forever. Those who reject that
view of that death are sorely puzzled what to make of the Lord’s
Supper.”
(_b_) It symbolizes our personal appropriation of the benefits of that
death.
_1 Cor. 11:24_—“_This is my body, which is for you_”; _cf._ _1
Cor. 5:7_—“_Christ our passover is sacrificed for us_”; or R.
V.—“_our passover also hath been sacrificed, even Christ_”; here
it is evident not only that the showing forth of the Lord’s death
is the primary meaning of the ordinance, but that our partaking of
the benefits of that death is as clearly taught as the Israelites’
deliverance was symbolized in the paschal supper.
(_c_) It symbolizes the method of this appropriation, through union with
Christ himself.
_1 Cor. 10:16_—“_The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a
communion of_ [marg.: ‘_participation in_’] _the blood of Christ?
The bread which we break, is it not a communion of_ [marg.:
‘_participation in_’] _the body of Christ?_” Here “_is it not a
participation_” = “does it not symbolize the participation?” So
_Mat. 26:26_—“_this is my body_” = “this symbolizes my body.”
(_d_) It symbolizes the continuous dependence of the believer for all
spiritual life upon the once crucified, now living, Savior, to whom he is
thus united.
_Cf._ _John 6:53_—“_Verily, verily, I say unto you, except ye eat
the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye have not life
in yourselves_”—here is a statement, not with regard to the Lord’s
Supper, but with regard to spiritual union with Christ, which the
Lord’s Supper only symbolizes; see page 965, (_a_). Like Baptism,
the Lord’s Supper presupposes and implies evangelical faith,
especially faith in the Deity of Christ; not that all who partake
of it realize its full meaning, but that this participation
logically implies the five great truths of Christ’s preëxistence,
his supernatural birth, his vicarious atonement, his literal
resurrection, and his living presence with his followers. Because
Ralph Waldo Emerson perceived that the Lord’s Supper implied
Christ’s omnipresence and deity, he would no longer celebrate it,
and so broke with his church and with the ministry.
(_e_) It symbolizes the sanctification of the Christian through a
spiritual reproduction in him of the death and resurrection of the Lord.
_Rom. 8:10_—“_And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of
sin; but the spirit is life because of righteousness_”; _Phil.
3:10_—“_that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection,
and the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming conformed unto his
death; if by any means I may attain unto the resurrection from the
dead._” The bread of life nourishes; but it transforms me, not I
it.
(_f_) It symbolizes the consequent union of Christians in Christ, their
head.
_1 Cor. 10:17_—“_seeing that we, who are many, are one bread, one
body: for we all partake of the one bread._” The Roman Catholic
says that bread is the unity of many kernels, the wine the unity
of many berries, and all are changed into the body of Christ. We
can adopt the former part of the statement, without taking the
latter. By being united to Christ, we become united to one
another; and the Lord’s Supper, as it symbolizes our common
partaking of Christ, symbolizes also the consequent oneness of all
in whom Christ dwells. Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, IX—“As
this broken bread was scattered upon the mountains, and being
gathered together became one, so may thy church be gathered
together from the ends of the earth into thy kingdom.”
(_g_) It symbolizes the coming joy and perfection of the kingdom of God.
_Luke 22:18_—“_for I say unto you, I shall not drink from
henceforth of the fruit of the vine, until the kingdom of God
shall come_”; _Mark 14:25_—“_Verily I say unto you, I will no more
drink of the fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new
in the kingdom of God_”; _Mat. 26:29_—“_But I say unto you, I
shall not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that
day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom._”
Like Baptism, which points forward to the resurrection, the Lord’s
Supper is anticipatory also. It brings before us, not simply
death, but life; not simply past sacrifice, but future glory. It
points forward to the great festival, “_the marriage supper of the
Lamb_” (_Rev. 19:9_). Dorner: “Then Christ will keep the Supper
anew with us, and the hours of highest solemnity in this life are
but a weak foretaste of the powers of the world to come.” See
Madison Avenue Lectures, 176‐216; The Lord’s Supper, a Clerical
Symposium, by Pressensé, Luthardt, and English Divines.
B. Inferences from this statement.
(_a_) The connection between the Lord’s Supper and Baptism consists in
this, that they both and equally are symbols of the death of Christ. In
Baptism, we show forth the death of Christ as the procuring cause of our
new birth into the kingdom of God. In the Lord’s Supper, we show forth the
death of Christ as the sustaining power of our spiritual life after it has
once begun. In the one, we honor the sanctifying power of the death of
Christ, as in the other we honor its regenerating power. Thus both are
parts of one whole,—setting before us Christ’s death for men in its two
great purposes and results.
If baptism symbolized purification only, there would be no point
of connection between the two ordinances. Their common reference
to the death of Christ binds the two together.
(_b_) The Lord’s Supper is to be often repeated,—as symbolizing Christ’s
constant nourishment of the soul, whose new birth was signified in
Baptism.
Yet too frequent repetition may induce superstitious confidence in
the value of communion as a mere outward form.
(_c_) The Lord’s Supper, like Baptism, is the symbol of a previous state
of grace. It has in itself no regenerating and no sanctifying power, but
is the symbol by which the relation of the believer to Christ, his
sanctifier, is vividly expressed and strongly confirmed.
We derive more help from the Lord’s Supper than from private
prayer, simply because it is an _external_ rite, impressing the
sense as well as the intellect, celebrated in company with other
believers whose faith and devotion help our own, and bringing
before us the profoundest truths of Christianity—the death of
Christ, and our union with Christ in that death.
(_d_) The blessing received from participation is therefore dependent
upon, and proportioned to, the faith of the communicant.
In observing the Lord’s Supper, we need to discern the body of the
Lord (_1 Cor. 11:29_)—that is, to recognize the spiritual meaning
of the ordinance, and the presence of Christ, who through his
deputed representatives gives to us the emblems, and who nourishes
and quickens our souls as these material things nourish and
quicken the body. The faith which thus discerns Christ is the gift
of the Holy Spirit.
(_e_) The Lord’s Supper expresses primarily the fellowship of the
believer, not with his brethren, but with Christ, his Lord.
The Lord’s Supper, like Baptism, symbolizes fellowship with the
brethren only as consequent upon, and incidental to, fellowship
with Christ. Just as we are all baptized “_into one body_” (_1
Cor. 12:13_) only by being “_baptized into Christ_” (_Rom. 6:3_),
so we commune with other believers in the Lord’s Supper, only as
we commune with Christ. Christ’s words: “_this do in remembrance
of me_” (_1 Cor. 11:24_), bid us think, not of our brethren, but
of the Lord. Baptism is not a test of personal worthiness. Nor is
the Lord’s Supper a test of personal worthiness, either our own or
that of others. It is not primarily an expression of Christian
fellowship. Nowhere in the New Testament is it called a communion
of Christians with one another. But it is called a communion of
the body and blood of Christ (_1 Cor. 10:16_)—or, in other words,
a participation in him. Hence there is not a single cup, but many:
“_divide it among yourselves_” (_Luke 22:17_). Here is warrant for
the individual communion‐cup. Most churches use more than one cup:
if more than one, why not many?
_1 Cor. 11:26_—“_as often as ye eat ... ye proclaim the Lord’s
death_”—the Lord’s Supper is a teaching ordinance, and is to be
observed, not simply for the good that comes to the communicant
and to his brethren, but for the sake of the witness which it
gives to the world that the Christ who died for its sins now lives
for its salvation. A. H. Ballard, in The Standard, Aug. 18, 1900,
on _1 Cor. 11:29_—“_eateth and drinketh judgment unto himself, if
he discern not the body_”—“He who eats and drinks, and does not
discern that he is redeemed by the offering of the body of Jesus
Christ once for all, eats and drinks a double condemnation,
because he does not discern the redemption which is symbolized by
the things which he eats and drinks. To turn his thought away from
that sacrificial body to the company of disciples assembled is a
grievous error—the error of all those who exalt the idea of
fellowship or communion in the celebration of the ordinance.”
The offence of a Christian brother, therefore, even if committed
against myself, should not prevent me from remembering Christ and
communing with the Savior. I could not commune at all, if I had to
vouch for the Christian character of all who sat with me. This
does not excuse the church from effort to purge its membership
from unworthy participants; it simply declares that the church’s
failure to do this does not absolve any single member of it from
his obligation to observe the Lord’s Supper. See Jacob, Eccl.
Polity of N. T., 285.
4. Erroneous views of the Lord’s Supper.
A. The Romanist view.
The Romanist view,—that the bread and wine are changed by priestly
consecration into the very body and blood of Christ; that this
consecration is a new offering of Christ’s sacrifice; and that, by a
physical partaking of the elements, the communicant receives saving grace
from God. To this doctrine of “transubstantiation” we reply:
(_a_) It rests upon a false interpretation of Scripture. In Mat. 26:26,
“this is my body” means: “this is a symbol of my body.” Since Christ was
with the disciples in visible form at the institution of the Supper, he
could not have intended them to recognize the bread as being his literal
body. “The body of Christ is present in the bread, just as it had been in
the passover lamb, of which the bread took the place” (John 6:53 contains
no reference to the Lord’s Supper, although it describes that spiritual
union with Christ which the Supper symbolizes; _cf._ 63. In 1 Cor. 10:16,
17, κοινωίαν τοῦ σώματος τοῦ Χριστοῦ is a figurative expression for the
spiritual partaking of Christ. In Mark 8:33, we are not to infer that
Peter was actually “Satan,” nor does 1 Cor. 12:12 prove that we are all
Christs. _Cf._ Gen. 41:26; 1 Cor. 10:4).
_Mat. 26:28_—“_This is my blood ... which is poured out,_” cannot
be meant to be taken literally, since Christ’s blood was not yet
shed. Hence the Douay version (Roman Catholic), without warrant,
changes the tense and reads, “which shall be shed.” At the
institution of the Supper, it is not conceivable that Christ
should hold his body in his own hands, and then break it to the
disciples. There were not two bodies there. Zwingle: “The words of
institution are not the mandatory ‘become’: they are only an
explanation of the sign.” When I point to a picture and say: “This
is George Washington,” I do not mean that the veritable body and
blood of George Washington are before me. So when a teacher points
to a map and says: “This is New York,” or when Jesus refers to
John the Baptist, and says: “_this is Elijah, that is to come_”
(_Mat. 11:14_). Jacob, The Lord’s Supper, Historically
Considered—“It originally marked, not a real presence, but a real
absence, of Christ as the Son of God made man”—that is, a real
absence of his _body_. Therefore the Supper, reminding us of his
body, is to be observed in the church “_till he come_” (_1 Cor.
11:26_).
_John 6:53_—“_Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink
his blood, ye have not life in yourselves_” must be interpreted by
_verse 63_—“_It is the spirit that giveth life; the flesh
profiteth nothing: the words that I have spoken unto you are
spirit, and are life._” _1 Cor. 10:16_—“_The cup of blessing which
we bless, is it not a communion of_ [marg.: ‘_participation in_’]
_the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a
communion of_ [marg. ‘_participation in_’] _the body of
Christ?_”—see Expositor’s Greek Testament, _in loco_; _Mark
8:33_—“_But he turning about, and seeing his disciples, rebuked
Peter, and saith, Get thee behind me, Satan_”; _1 Cor.
12:12_—“_For the body is one, and hath many members, and all the
members of the body, being many, are one body; so also is
Christ._” _cf._ _Gen. 41:26_—“_The seven good kine are seven
years; and the seven good ears are seven years: the dream is
one;_” _1 Cor. 10:4_—“_they drank of a spiritual rock that
followed them: and the rock was Christ._”
Queen Elizabeth: “Christ was the Word that spake it: He took the
bread and brake it; And what that Word did make it, That I believe
and take it.” Yes, we say; but what does the Lord make it? Not his
body, but only a symbol of his body. Sir Thomas More went back to
the doctrine of transubstantiation which the wisdom of his age was
almost unanimous in rejecting. In his Utopia, written to earlier
years, he had made deism the ideal religion. Extreme Romanism was
his reaction from this former extreme. Bread and wine are mere
remembrancers, as were the lamb and bitter herbs at the Passover.
The partaker is spiritually affected by the bread and wine, only
as was the pious Israelite in receiving the paschal symbols; see
Norman Fox, Christ in the Daily Meal, 25, 42.
E. G. Robinson: “The greatest power in Romanism is its power of
visible representation. Ritualism is only elaborate symbolism. It
is interesting to remember that this prostration of the priest
before the consecrated wafer is no part of even original Roman
Catholicism.” Stanley, Life and Letters, 2:213—“The pope, when he
celebrates the communion, always stands in exactly the opposite
direction [to that of modern ritualists], not with his back but
with his face to the people, no doubt following the primitive
usage.” So in Raphael’s picture of the Miracle of Bolsina, the
priest is at the north end of the table, in the very attitude of a
Protestant clergyman. Pfleiderer, Philos. Religion, 2:211—“The
unity of the bread, of which each enjoys a part, represents the
unity of the body of Christ, which consists in the community of
believers. If we are to speak of a presence of the body of Christ
in the Lord’s Supper, that can only be thought of, in the sense of
Paul, as pertaining to the mystical body, _i. e._, the Christian
Community. Augustine and Zwingle, who have expressed most clearly
this meaning of the Supper, have therefore caught quite correctly
the sense of the Apostle.”
Norman Fox, Christ in the Daily Meal, 40‐53—“The phrase
‘consecration of the elements’ is unwarranted. The leaven and the
mustard seed were in no way consecrated when Jesus pronounced them
symbols of divine things. The bread and wine are not arbitrarily
appointed remembrancers, they are remembrancers in their very
nature. There is no change in them. So every other loaf is a
symbol, as well as that used in the Supper. When St. Patrick held
up the shamrock as the symbol of the Trinity, he meant that every
such sprig was the same. Only the bread of the daily meal is
Christ’s body. Only the washing of dirty feet is the fulfilment of
Christ’s command. The loaf not eaten to satisfy hunger is not
Christ’s symbolic body at all.” Here we must part company with Dr.
Fox. We grant the natural fitness of the elements for which he
contends. But we hold also to a divine appointment of the bread
and wine for a special and sacred use, even as the “_bow in the
cloud_” (_Gen. 9:13_), because it was a natural emblem, was
consecrated to a special religious use.
(_b_) It contradicts the evidence of the senses, as well as of all
scientific tests that can be applied. If we cannot trust our senses as to
the unchanged material qualities of bread and wine, we cannot trust them
when they report to us the words of Christ.
Gibbon was rejoiced at the discovery that, while the real presence
is attested by only a single sense—our sight [as employed in
reading the words of Christ]—the real presence is disproved by
three of our senses, sight, touch, and taste. It is not well to
purchase faith in this dogma at the price of absolute scepticism.
Stanley, on Baptism, in his Christian Institutions, tells us that,
in the third and fourth centuries, the belief that the water of
baptism was changed into the blood of Christ was nearly as firmly
and widely fixed as the belief that the bread and wine of the
communion were changed into his flesh and blood. Döllinger: “When
I am told that I must swear to the truth of these doctrines [of
papal infallibility and apostolic succession], my feeling is just
as if I were asked to swear that two and two make five, and not
four.” Teacher: “Why did Henry VIII quarrel with the pope?”
Scholar: “Because the pope had commanded him to put away his wife
on pain of transubstantiation.” The transubstantiation of Henry
VIII is quite as rational as the transubstantiation of the bread
and wine in the Eucharist.
(_c_) It involves the denial of the completeness of Christ’s past
sacrifice, and the assumption that a human priest can repeat or add to the
atonement made by Christ once for all (Heb. 9:28—ἅπαξ προσενεχθείς). The
Lord’s Supper is never called a sacrifice, nor are altars, priests, or
consecrations ever spoken of, in the New Testament. The priests of the old
dispensation are expressly contrasted with the ministers of the new. The
former “ministered about sacred things,” _i. e._, performed sacred rites
and waited at the altar; but the latter “preach the gospel” (1 Cor. 9:13,
14).
_Heb. 9:28_—“_so Christ also, having been once offered_”—here ἅπαξ
means “once for all,” as in _Jude 3_—“_the faith which was once
for all delivered unto the saints_”; _1 Cor. 9:13, 14_—“_Know ye
not that they that minister about sacred things eat of the things
of the temple, and they that wait upon the altar have their
portion with the altar? Even so did the Lord ordain that they that
proclaim the gospel should live of the gospel._” Romanism
introduces a mediator between the soul and Christ, namely, bread
and wine,—and the priest besides.
Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2:680‐687 (Syst. Doct., 4: 146‐163)—“Christ
is thought of as at a distance, and as represented only by the
priest who offers anew his sacrifice. But Protestant doctrine
holds to a perfect Christ, applying the benefits of the work which
he long ago and once for all completed upon the cross.”
Chillingworth: “Romanists hold that the validity of every
sacrament but baptism depends upon its administration by a priest;
and without priestly absolution there is no assurance of
forgiveness. But the intention of the priest is essential in
pronouncing absolution, and the intention of the bishop is
essential in consecrating the priest. How can any human being know
that these conditions are fulfilled?” In the New Testament, on the
other hand, Christ appears as the only priest, and each human soul
has direct access to him.
Norman Fox, Christ in the Daily Meal, 22—“The adherence of the
first Christians to the Mosaic law makes it plain that they did
not hold the doctrine of the modern Church of Rome that the bread
of the Supper is a sacrifice, the table an altar, and the minister
a priest. For the old altar, the old sacrifice, and the old
priesthood still remained, and were still in their view appointed
media of atonement with God. Of course they could not have
believed in two altars, two priesthoods and two contemporaneous
sets of sacrifices.” Christ is the only priest. A. A. Hodge,
Popular Lectures, 257—“The three central dangerous errors of
Romanism and Ritualism are: 1. the perpetuity of the apostolate;
2. the priestly character and offices of Christian ministers; 3.
the sacramental principle, or the depending upon sacraments, as
the essential, initial, and ordinary channels of grace.”
“Hierarchy,” says another, “is an infraction of the divine order;
it imposes the weight of an outworn symbolism on the true
vitalities of the gospel; it is a remnant rent from the shroud of
the dead past, to enwrap the limbs of the living present.”
(_d_) It destroys Christianity by externalizing it. Romanists make all
other service a mere appendage to the communion. Physical and magical
salvation is not Christianity, but is essential paganism.
Council of Trent, Session VII, On Sacraments in General, Canon IV:
“If any one saith that the sacraments of the New Testament are not
necessary to salvation, but are superfluous, and that without
them, and without the desire thereof, men attain of God, through
faith alone, the grace of justification; though all [the
sacraments] are not indeed necessary for every individual: let him
be anathema.” On Baptism, Canon IV: “If any one saith that the
baptism which is even given by heretics in the name of the Father,
Son and Holy Ghost, with the intention of doing what the church
doth, is not true baptism, let him be anathema.” Baptism, in the
Romanist system, is necessary to salvation: and baptism, even
though administered by heretics, is an admission to the church.
All baptized persons who, through no fault of their own, but from
lack of knowledge or opportunity, are not connected outwardly with
the true church, though they are apparently attached to some sect,
yet in reality belong _to the soul_ of the true church. Many
belong merely _to the body_ of the Catholic church, and are
counted as its members, but do not belong _to its soul_. So says
Archbishop Lynch, of Toronto; and Pius IX extended the doctrine of
invincible ignorance, so as to cover the case of every dissentient
from the church whose life shows faith working by love.
Adoration of the Host (Latin _hostia_, victim) is a regular part
of the service of the Mass. If the Romanist view were correct that
the bread and wine were actually changed into the body and blood
of Christ, we could not call this worship idolatry. Christ’s body
in the sepulchre could not have been a proper object of worship,
but it was so after his resurrection, when it became animated with
a new and divine life. The Romanist error is that of holding that
the priest has power to transform the elements; the worship of
them follows as a natural consequence, and is none the less
idolatrous for being based upon the false assumption that the
bread and wine are really Christ’s body and blood.
The Roman Catholic system involves many absurdities, but the
central absurdity is that of making religion a matter of machinery
and outward manipulation. Dr. R. S. MacArthur calls sacramentalism
“the pipe‐line conception of grace.” There is no patent Romanist
plumbing. Dean Stanley said that John Henry Newman “made
immortality the consequence of frequent participation of the Holy
Communion.” Even Faber made game of the notion, and declared that
it “degraded celebrations to be so many breadfruit trees.” It is
this transformation of the Lord’s Supper into the Mass that turns
the church into “the Church of the Intonement.” “Cardinal
Gibbons,” it was once said, “makes his own God—the wafer.” His
error is at the root of the super‐sanctity and celibacy of the
Romanist clergy, and President Garrett forgot this when he made
out the pass on his railway for “Cardinal Gibbons and wife.” Dr.
C. H. Parkhurst: “There is no more place for an altar in a
Christian church than there is for a golden calf.” On the word
“priest” in the N. T., see Gardiner, in O. T. Student, Nov.
1889:285‐291; also Bowen, in Theol. Monthly, Nov. 1889:316‐329.
For the Romanist view, see Council of Trent, session XIII, canon
III: _per contra_, see Calvin, Institutes, 2:585‐602; C. Hebert,
The Lord’s Supper: History of Uninspired Teaching.
B. The Lutheran and High Church view.
The Lutheran and High Church view,—that the communicant, in partaking of
the consecrated elements, eats the veritable body and drinks the veritable
blood of Christ in and with the bread and wine, although the elements
themselves do not cease to be material. To this doctrine of
“consubstantiation” we object:
(_a_) That the view is not required by Scripture.—All the passages cited
in its support may be better interpreted as referring to a partaking of
the elements as symbols. If Christ’s body be ubiquitous, as this theory
holds, we partake of it at every meal, as really as at the Lord’s Supper.
(_b_) That the view is inseparable from the general sacramental system of
which it forms a part.—In imposing physical and material conditions of
receiving Christ, it contradicts the doctrine of justification only by
faith; changes the ordinance from a sign, into a means, of salvation;
involves the necessity of a sacerdotal order for the sake of properly
consecrating the elements; and logically tends to the Romanist conclusions
of ritualism and idolatry.
(_c_) That it holds each communicant to be a partaker of Christ’s
veritable body and blood, whether he be a believer or not,—the result, in
the absence of faith, being condemnation instead of salvation. Thus the
whole character of the ordinance is changed from a festival occasion to
one of mystery and fear, and the whole gospel method of salvation is
obscured.
Encyc. Britannica, art.: Luther, 15:81—“Before the peasants’ war,
Luther regarded the sacrament as a secondary matter, compared with
the right view of faith. In alarm at this war and at Carlstadt’s
mysticism, he determined to abide by the tradition of the church,
and to alter as little as possible. He could not accept
transubstantiation, and he sought a _via media_. Occam gave it to
him. According to Occam, matter can be present in two ways, first,
when it occupies a distinct place by itself, excluding every other
body, as two stones mutually exclude each other; and, secondly,
when it occupies the same space as another body at the same time.
Everything which is omnipresent must occupy the same space as
other things, else it could not be ubiquitous. Hence
consubstantiation involved no miracle. Christ’s body was in the
bread and wine naturally, and was not brought into the elements by
the priest. It brought a blessing, not because of Christ’s
presence, but because of God’s promise that this particular
presence of the body of Christ should bring blessings to the
faithful partaker.” Broadus, Am. Com. on Mat., 529—“Luther does
not say how Christ is in the bread and wine, but his followers
have compared his presence to that of heat or magnetism in iron.
But how then could this presence be in the bread and wine
separately?”
For the view here combated, see Gerhard, x: 352—“The bread, apart
from the sacrament instituted by Christ, is not the body of
Christ, and therefore it is ἀρτολατρία (bread‐worship) to adore
the bread in these solemn processions” (of the Roman Catholic
church). 397—“Faith does not belong to the substance of the
Eucharist; hence it is not the faith of him who partakes that
makes the bread a communication of the body of Christ; nor on
account of unbelief in him who partakes does the bread cease to be
a communication of the body of Christ.” See also Sadler, Church
Doctrine, 124‐199; Pusey, Tract No. 90, of the Tractarian Series;
Wilberforce, New Birth; Nevins, Mystical Presence.
_Per contra_, see Calvin, Institutes, 2:525‐584; G. P. Fisher, in
Independent, May 1, 1884—“Calvin differed from Luther, in holding
that Christ is received only by the believer. He differed from
Zwingle, in holding that Christ is truly, though spiritually,
received.” See also E. G. Robinson, in Baptist Quarterly,
1869:85‐109; Rogers, Priests and Sacraments. Consubstantiation
accounts for the doctrine of apostolic succession and for the
universal ritualism of the Lutheran Church. Bowing at the name of
Jesus, however, is not, as has been sometimes maintained, a relic
of the papal worship of the Real Presence, but is rather a
reminiscence of the fourth century, when controversies about the
person of Christ rendered orthodox Christians peculiarly anxious
to recognize Christ’s deity.
“There is no ‘corner’ in divine grace” (C. H. Parkhurst). “All
notions of a needed ‘priesthood,’ to bring us into connection with
Christ, must yield to the truth that Christ is ever with us” (E.
G. Robinson). “The priest was the conservative, the prophet the
progressive. Hence the conflict between them. Episcopalians like
the idea of a priesthood, but do not know what to do with that of
prophet.” Dr. A. J. Gordon: “Ritualism, like eczema in the human
body, is generally a symptom of a low state of the blood. As a
rule, when the church becomes secularized, it becomes ritualized,
while great revivals, pouring through the church, have almost
always burst the liturgical bands and have restored it to the
freedom of the Spirit.”
Puseyism, as defined by Pusey himself, means: “1. high thoughts of
the two sacraments; 2. high estimate of Episcopacy as God’s
ordinance; 3. high estimate of the visible church as the body
wherein we are made and continue to be members of Christ; 4.
regard for ordinances as directing our devotions and disciplining
us, such as daily public prayers, fasts and feasts; 5. regard for
the visible part of devotion, such as the decoration of the house
of God, which acts insensibly on the mind; 6. reverence for and
deference to the ancient church, instead of the reformers, as the
ultimate expounder of the meaning of our church.” Pusey declared
that he and Maurice worshiped different Gods.
5. Prerequisites to Participation in the Lord’s Supper.
A. There are prerequisites.
This we argue from the fact:
(_a_) That Christ enjoined the celebration of the Supper, not upon the
world at large, but only upon his disciples; (_b_) that the apostolic
injunctions to Christians, to separate themselves from certain of their
number, imply a limitation of the Lord’s Supper to a narrower body, even
among professed believers; (_c_) that the analogy of Baptism, as belonging
only to a specified class of persons, leads us to believe that the same is
true of the Lord’s Supper.
The analogy of Baptism to the Lord’s Supper suggests a general
survey of the connections between the two ordinances: 1. Both
ordinances symbolize primarily the death of Christ; then
secondarily our spiritual death to sin because we are one with
him; it being absurd, where there is no such union, to make our
Baptism the symbol of his death. 2. We are merged in Christ first
in Baptism; then in the Supper Christ is more and more taken into
us; Baptism = we in Christ, the Supper = Christ in us. 3. As
regeneration is instantaneous and sanctification continues in
time, so Baptism should be for once, the Lord’s Supper often; the
first single, the second frequent. 4. If one ordinance, the
Supper, requires discernment of the Lord’s body, so does the
other, the ordinance of Baptism; the subject of Baptism should
know the meaning of his act. 5. The order of the ordinances
teaches Christian doctrine, as the ordinances do; to partake of
the Lord’s Supper before being baptized is to say in symbol that
one can be sanctified without being regenerated. 6. Both
ordinances should be public, as both “show forth” the Lord’s death
and are teaching ordinances; no celebration of either one is to be
permitted in private. 7. In both the administrator does not act at
his own option, but is the organ of the church; Philip acts as
organ of the church at Jerusalem when he baptizes the eunuch. 8.
The ordinances stand by themselves, and are not to be made
appendages of other meetings or celebrations; they belong, not to
associations or conventions, but to the local church. 9. The
Lord’s Supper needs scrutiny of the communicant’s qualifications
as much as Baptism; and only the local church is the proper judge
of these qualifications. 10. We may deny the Lord’s Supper to one
whom we know to be a Christian, when he walks disorderly or
disseminates false doctrine, just as we may deny Baptism to such a
person. 11. Fencing the tables, or warning the unqualified not to
partake of the Supper, may, like instruction with regard to
Baptism, best take place before the actual administration of the
ordinance; and the pastor is not a special policeman or detective
to ferret out offences. See Expositor’s Greek Testament on _1 Cor.
10:1‐6_.
B. The prerequisites are those only which are expressly or implicitly laid
down by Christ and his apostles.
(_a_) The church, as possessing executive but not legislative power, is
charged with the duty, not of framing rules for the administering and
guarding of the ordinance, but of discovering and applying the rules given
it in the New Testament. No church has a right to establish any terms of
communion; it is responsible only for making known the terms established
by Christ and his apostles. (_b_) These terms, however, are to be
ascertained not only from the injunctions, but also from the precedents,
of the New Testament. Since the apostles were inspired, New Testament
precedent is the “common law” of the church.
English law consists mainly of precedent, that is, past decisions
of the courts. Immemorial customs may be as binding as are the
formal enactments of a legislature. It is New Testament precedent
that makes obligatory the observance of the first day, instead of
the seventh day, of the week. The common law of the church
consists, however, not of any and all customs, but only of the
customs of the apostolic church interpreted in the light of its
principles, or the customs universally binding because sanctioned
by inspired apostles. Has New Testament precedent the authority of
a divine command? Only so far, we reply, as it is an adequate,
complete and final expression of the divine life in Christ. This
we claim for the ordinances of Baptism and of the Lord’s Supper,
and for the order of these ordinances. See Proceedings of the
Baptist Congress, 1896:23.
The Mennonites, thinking to reproduce even the incidental phases
of N. T. action, have adopted: 1. the washing of feet; 2. the
marriage only of members of the same faith; 3. non‐resistance to
violence; 4. the use of the ban, and the shunning of expelled
persons; 5. refusal to take oaths; 6. the kiss of peace; 7. formal
examination of the spiritual condition of each communicant before
his participation in the Lord’s Supper; 8. the choice of officials
by lot. And they naturally break up into twelve sects, dividing
upon such points as holding all things in common; plainness of
dress, one sect repudiating buttons and using only hooks upon
their clothing, whence their nickname of Hookers; the holding of
services in private houses only; the asserted possession of the
gift of prophecy (A. S. Carman).
C. On examining the New Testament, we find that the prerequisites to
participation in the Lord’s Supper are four.
First,—Regeneration.
The Lord’s Supper is the outward expression of a life in the believer,
nourished and sustained by the life of Christ. It cannot therefore be
partaken of by one who is “dead through ... trespasses and sins.” We give
no food to a corpse. The Lord’s Supper was never offered by the apostles
to unbelievers. On the contrary, the injunction that each communicant
“examine himself” implies that faith which will enable the communicant to
“discern the Lord’s body” is a prerequisite to participation.
_1 Cor. 11:27‐29_—“_Wherefore whosoever shall eat the bread or
drink the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty
of the body and the blood of the Lord. But let a man prove
himself, and so let him eat of the bread, and drink of the cup.
For he that eateth and drinketh, eateth and drinketh judgment unto
himself, if he discern not the Lord’s body._” Schaff, in his
Church History, 2:517, tells us that in the Greek Church, in the
seventh and eighth centuries, the bread was dipped in the wine,
and both elements were delivered in a spoon. See Edwards, on
Qualifications for Full Communion, in Works, 1:81.
Secondly,—Baptism.
In proof that baptism is a prerequisite to the Lord’s Supper, we urge the
following considerations:
(_a_) The ordinance of baptism was instituted and administered long before
the Supper.
_Mat. 21:25_—“_The baptism of John, whence was it? from heaven or
from men?_”—Christ here intimates that John’s baptism had been
instituted by God before his own.
(_b_) The apostles who first celebrated it had, in all probability, been
baptized.
_Acts 1:21, 22_—“_Of the men therefore that have companied with us
all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and went out among us,
beginning from the baptism of John ... of these must one become a
witness with us of his resurrection_”; _19:4_—“_John baptized with
the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people that they should
believe on him that should come after him, that is, on Jesus._”
Several of the apostles were certainly disciples of John. If
Christ was baptized, much more his disciples. Jesus recognized
John’s baptism as obligatory, and it is not probable that he would
take his apostles from among those who had not submitted to it.
John the Baptist himself, the first administrator of baptism, must
have been himself unbaptized. But the twelve could fitly
administer it, because they had themselves received it at John’s
hands. See Arnold, Terms of Communion, 17.
(_c_) The command of Christ fixes the place of baptism as first in order
after discipleship.
_Mat. 28:19, 20_—“_Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the
nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son
and of the Holy Spirit: teaching them to observe all things
whatsoever I commanded you_”—here the first duty is to make
disciples, the second to baptize, the third to instruct in right
Christian living. Is it said that there is no formal command to
admit only baptized persons to the Lord’s Supper? We reply that
there is no formal command to admit only regenerate persons to
baptism. In both cases, the practice of the apostles and the
general connections of Christian doctrine are sufficient to
determine our duty.
(_d_) All the recorded cases show this to have been the order observed by
the first Christians and sanctioned by the apostles.
_Acts 2:41, 46_—“_They then that received his word were
baptized.... And day by day, continuing stedfastly with one accord
in the temple, and breaking bread at home_ [rather, ‘_in various
worship‐rooms_’] _they took their food with gladness and
singleness of heart_”; _8:12_—“_But when they believed Philip ...
they were baptized_”; _10:47, 48_—“_Can any man forbid the water,
that these should not be baptized, who have received the Holy
Spirit as well as we? And he commanded them to be baptized in the
name of Jesus Christ_”; _22:16_—“_And now why tarriest thou?
arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on his
name._”
(_e_) The symbolism of the ordinances requires that baptism should precede
the Lord’s Supper. The order of the facts signified must be expressed in
the order of the ordinances which signify them; else the world is taught
that sanctification may take place without regeneration. Birth must come
before sustenance—“_nascimur_, _pascimur_.” To enjoy ceremonial
privileges, there must be ceremonial qualifications. As none but the
circumcised could eat the passover, so before eating with the Christian
family must come adoption into the Christian family.
As one must be “_born of the Spirit_” before he can experience the
sustaining influence of Christ, so he must be “_born of water_”
before he can properly be nourished by the Lord’s Supper. Neither
the unborn nor the dead can eat bread or drink wine. Only when
Christ had raised the daughter of the Jewish ruler to life, did he
say: “_Give her to eat_.” The ordinance which symbolizes
regeneration, or the impartation of new life, must precede the
ordinance which symbolizes the strengthening and perfecting of the
life already begun. The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, dating
back to the second half of the second century, distinctly declares
(9:5, 10)—“Let no one eat or drink of your Eucharist except those
baptized into the name of the Lord; for as regards this also the
Lord has said: ‘Give not that which is holy unto the dogs’.... The
Eucharist shall be given only to the baptized.”
(_f_) The standards of all evangelical denominations, with unimportant
exceptions, confirm the view that this is the natural interpretation of
the Scripture requirements respecting the order of the ordinances.
“The only protest of note has been made by a portion of the
English Baptists.” To these should be added the comparatively
small body of the Free Will Baptists in America. Pedobaptist
churches in general refuse full membership, office‐holding, and
the ministry, to unbaptized persons. The Presbyterian church does
not admit to the communion members of the Society of Friends. Not
one of the great evangelical denominations accepts Robert Hall’s
maxim that the only terms of communion are terms of salvation. If
individual ministers announce this principle and conform their
practice to it, it is only because they transgress the standards
of the churches to which they belong.
See Tyerman’s Oxford Methodists, preface, page vi—“Even in
Georgia, Wesley excluded dissenters from the Holy Communion, on
the ground that they had not been properly baptized; and he would
himself baptize only by immersion, unless the child or person was
in a weak state of health.” Baptist Noel gave it as his reason for
submitting to baptism, that to approach the Lord’s Supper
conscious of not being baptized would be to act contrary to all
the precedents of Scripture. See Curtis, Progress of Baptist
Principles, 304.
The dismission of Jonathan Edwards from his church at Northampton
was due to his opposing the Halfway Covenant, which admitted
unregenerate persons to the Lord’s Supper as a step on the road to
spiritual life. He objected to the doctrine that the Lord’s Supper
was “a converting ordinance.” But these very unregenerated persons
had been baptized, and he himself had baptized many of them. He
should have objected to infant baptism, as well as to the Lord’s
Supper, in the case of the unregenerate.
(_g_) The practical results of the opposite view are convincing proof that
the order here insisted on is the order of nature as well as of Scripture.
The admission of unbaptized persons to the communion tends always to, and
has frequently resulted in, the disuse of baptism itself, the obscuring of
the truth which it symbolizes, the transformation of Scripturally
constituted churches into bodies organized after methods of human
invention, and the complete destruction of both church and ordinances as
Christ originally constituted them.
Arnold, Terms of Communion, 76—The steps of departure from
Scriptural precedent have not unfrequently been the following: (1)
administration of baptism on a weekday evening, to avoid giving
offence; (2) reception, without baptism, of persons renouncing
belief in the baptism of their infancy; (3) giving up of the
Lord’s Supper as non‐essential,—to be observed or not observed by
each individual, according as he finds it useful; (4) choice of a
pastor who will not advocate Baptist views; (5) adoption of
Congregational articles of faith; (6) discipline and exclusion of
members for propagating Baptist doctrine. John Bunyan’s church,
once either an open communion church or a mixed church both of
baptized and unbaptized believers, is now a regular Congregational
body. Armitage, History of the Baptists, 482 _sq._, claims that it
was originally a Baptist church. Vedder, however, in Bap. Quar.
Rev., 1886:289, says that “The church at Bedford is proved by
indisputable documentary evidence never to have been a Baptist
church in any strict sense.” The results of the principle of open
communion are certainly seen in the Regent’s Park church in
London, where some of the deacons have never been baptized. The
doctrine that baptism is not essential to church membership is
simply the logical result of the previous practice of admitting
unbaptized persons to the communion table. If they are admitted to
the Lord’s Supper, then there is no bar to their admission to the
church. See Proceedings of the Baptist Congress, Boston, November,
1902; Curtis, Progress of Baptist Principles, 296‐298.
Thirdly,—Church membership.
(_a_) The Lord’s Supper is a church ordinance, observed by churches of
Christ as such. For this reason, membership in the church naturally
precedes communion. Since communion is a family rite, the participant
should first be a member of the family.
_Acts 2:46 47_—“_breaking bread at home_ [rather, ‘_in various
worship‐rooms_’]” (see Com. of Meyer); _20:7_—“_upon the first day
of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread_”; _1
Cor. 11:18, 22_—“_when ye come together in the church ... have ye
not houses to eat and to drink in? or despise ye the church of
God, and put them to shame that have not?_”
(_b_) The Lord’s Supper is a symbol of church fellowship. Excommunication
implies nothing, if it does not imply exclusion from the communion. If the
Supper is simply communion of the individual with Christ, then the church
has no right to exclude any from it.
_1 Cor. 10:17_—“_we, who are many, are one bread, one body: for we
all partake of the one bread._” Though the Lord’s Supper primarily
symbolizes fellowship with Christ, it symbolizes secondarily
fellowship with the church of Christ. Not all believers in Christ
were present at the first celebration of the Supper, but only
those organized into a body—the apostles. I can invite proper
persons to my tea‐table, but that does not give them the right to
come uninvited. Each church, therefore, should invite visiting
members of sister churches to partake with it. The Lord’s Supper
is an ordinance by itself, and should not be celebrated at
conventions and associations, simply to lend dignity to something
else.
The Panpresbyterian Council at Philadelphia, in 1880, refused to
observe the Lord’s Supper together, upon the ground that the
Supper is a church ordinance, to be observed only by those who are
amenable to the discipline of the body, and therefore not to be
observed by separate church organizations acting together.
Substantially upon this ground, the Old School General Assembly
long before, being invited to unite at the Lord’s table with the
New School body with whom they had dissolved ecclesiastical
relations, declined to do so. See Curtis, Progress of Baptist
Principles, 304; Arnold, Terms of Communion, 36.
Fourthly,—An orderly walk.
Disorderly walking designates a course of life in a church member which is
contrary to the precepts of the gospel. It is a bar to participation in
the Lord’s Supper, the sign of church fellowship. With Arnold, we may
class disorderly walking under four heads:—
(_a_) Immoral conduct.
_1 Cor. 5:1‐13_—Paul commands the Corinthian church to exclude the
incestuous person: “_I wrote unto you in my epistle to have no
company with fornicators;... but now I write unto you not to keep
company, if any man that is named a brother be a fornicator, or
covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or __ an
extortioner; with such a one no, not to eat.... Put away the
wicked man from among yourselves._”—Here it is evident that the
most serious forms of disorderly walking require exclusion not
only from church fellowship but from Christian fellowship as well.
(_b_) Disobedience to the commands of Christ.
_1 Cor. 14:37_—“_If any man thinketh himself to be a prophet, or
spiritual, let him take knowledge of the things which I write unto
you, that they are the commandments of the Lord_”; _2 Thess. 3:6,
11, 15_—“_Now we command you, brethren,... that ye withdraw
yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not
after the tradition which they received of us... For we hear of
some that walk among you disorderly, that work not at all, but are
busybodies.... And if any man obeyeth not our word by this
epistle, note that man, that ye have no company with him, to the
end that he may be ashamed. And yet count him not as an enemy, but
admonish him as a brother._”—Here is exclusion from church
fellowship, and from the Lord’s Supper its sign, while yet the
offender is not excluded from Christian fellowship, but is still
counted “_a brother_.” _Versus_ G. B. Stevens, in N. Englander,
1887:40‐47.
In these passages Paul intimates that “not to walk after the
tradition received from him, not to obey the word contained in his
epistles, is the same as disobedience to the commands of Christ,
and as such involves the forfeiture of church fellowship and its
privileged tokens” (Arnold, Prerequisites to Communion, 68). Since
Baptism is a command of Christ, it follows that we cannot properly
commune with the unbaptized. To admit such to the Lord’s Supper is
to give the symbol of church fellowship to those who, in spite of
the fact that they are Christian brethren, are, though perhaps
unconsciously, violating the fundamental law of the church. To
withhold protest against plain disobedience to Christ’s commands
is to that extent to countenance such disobedience. The same
disobedience which in the church member we should denominate
disorderly walking must _a fortiori_ destroy all right to the
Lord’s Supper on the part of those who are not members of the
church.
(_c_) Heresy, or the holding and teaching of false doctrine.
_Titus 3:10_—“_A man that is heretical_ [Am. Revisers: ‘_a
factious man_’] _after a first and second admonition refuse_”; see
Ellicott, Com., _in loco_: “αἱρετικὸς ἄνθρωπος = one who gives
rise to divisions by erroneous teaching, not necessarily of a
fundamentally heterodox nature, but of the kind just described in
_verse 9_.” _Cf._ _Acts 20:30_—“_from among your own selves shall
men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples
after them_”; _1 John 4:2, 3_—“_Hereby know ye the Spirit of God:
every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the
flesh is of God: and every spirit that confesseth not Jesus is not
of God: and this is the spirit of the antichrist._” B. B.
Bosworth: “Heresy, in the N. T., does not necessarily mean the
holding of erroneous opinions,—it may also mean the holding of
correct opinions in an unbrotherly or divisive spirit.” We grant
that the word “_heretical_” may also mean “_factious_”; but we
claim that false doctrine is the chief source of division, and is
therefore in itself a disqualification for participation in the
Lord’s Supper. Factiousness is an additional bar, and we treat it
under the next head of Schism.
The Panpresbyterian Council, mentioned above, refused to admit to
their body the Cumberland Presbyterians, because, though the
latter adhere to the Presbyterian form of church government, they
are Arminian in their views of the doctrines of grace. As we have
seen, on pages 940‐942, that Baptism is a confession of
evangelical faith, so here we see that the Lord’s Supper also is a
confession of evangelical faith, and that no one can properly
participate in it who denies the doctrines of sin, of the deity,
incarnation and atonement of Christ, and of justification by
faith, which the Lord’s Supper symbolizes. Such denial should
exclude from all Christian fellowship as well.
There is heresy which involves exclusion only from church
fellowship. Since pedobaptists hold and propagate false doctrine
with regard to the church and its ordinances—doctrines which
endanger the spirituality of the church, the sufficiency of the
Scriptures, and the lordship of Christ—we cannot properly admit
them to the Lord’s Supper. To admit them or to partake with them,
would be to treat falsehood as if it were truth. Arnold,
Prerequisites to Communion, 72—“Pedobaptists are guilty of
teaching that the baptized are not members of the church, or that
membership in the church is not voluntary; that there are two
sorts of baptism, one of which is a profession of faith of the
person baptized, and the other is profession of faith of another
person; that regeneration is given in and by baptism, or that the
church is composed in great part of persons who do not give, and
were never supposed to give, any evidence of regeneration; that
the church has a right to change essentially one of Christ’s
institutions, or that it is unessential whether it be observed as
he ordained it or in some other manner; that baptism may be
rightfully administered in a way which makes much of the language
in which it is described in the Scriptures wholly unsuitable and
inapplicable, and which does not at all represent the facts and
doctrines which baptism is declared in the Scriptures to
represent; that the Scriptures are not in all religious matters
the sufficient and only binding rule of faith and practice.”
(_d_) Schism, or the promotion of division and dissension in the
church.—This also requires exclusion from church fellowship, and from the
Lord’s Supper which is its appointed sign.
_Rom. 16:17_—“_Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them that are
causing the divisions and occasions of stumbling contrary to the
doctrine which ye learned: and turn away from them._” Since
pedobaptists, by their teaching and practice, draw many away from
Scripturally constituted churches,—thus dividing true believers
from each other and weakening the bodies organized after the model
of the New Testament,—it is imperative upon us to separate
ourselves from them, so far as regards that communion at the
Lord’s table which is the sign of church fellowship. Mr. Spurgeon
admits pedobaptists to commune with his church “for two or three
months.” Then they are kindly asked whether they are pleased with
the church, its preaching, doctrine, form of government, _etc._ If
they say they are pleased, they are asked if they are not disposed
to be baptized and become members? If so inclined, all is well;
but if not, they are kindly told that it is not desirable for them
to commune longer. Thus baptism is held to precede church
membership and permanent communion, although temporary communion
is permitted without it.
Arnold, Prerequisites to Communion, 80—“It may perhaps be objected
that the passages cited under the four preceding subdivisions
refer to church fellowship in a general way, without any specific
reference to the Lord’s Supper. In reply to this objection, I
would answer, in the first place, that having endeavored
previously to establish the position that the Lord’s Supper is an
ordinance to be celebrated in the church, and expressive of church
fellowship, I felt at liberty to use the passages that enjoin the
withdrawal of that fellowship as constructively enjoining
exclusion from the Communion, which is its chief token. I answer,
secondly, that the principle here assumed seems to me to pervade
the Scriptural teachings so thoroughly that it is next to
impossible to lay down _any_ Scriptural terms of communion at the
Lord’s table, except upon the admission that the ordinance is
inseparably connected with church fellowship. To treat the subject
otherwise, would be, as it appears to me, a violent putting
asunder of what the Lord has joined together. The objection
suggests an additional argument in favor of our position that the
Lord’s Supper is a _church_ ordinance.” “Who Christ’s body doth
divide, Wounds afresh the Crucified; Who Christ’s people doth
perplex, Weakens faith and comfort wrecks; Who Christ’s order doth
not see, Works in vain for unity; Who Christ’s word doth take for
guide, With the Bridegroom loves the Bride.”
D. The local church is the judge whether these prerequisites are
fulfilled.
The local church is the judge whether these prerequisites are fulfilled in
the case of persons desiring to partake of the Lord’s Supper.—This is
evident from the following considerations:
(_a_) The command to observe the ordinance was given, not to individuals,
but to a company.
(_b_) Obedience to this command is not an individual act, but is the joint
act of many.
(_c_) The regular observance of the Lord’s Supper cannot be secured, nor
the qualifications of persons desiring to participate in it be
scrutinized, unless some distinct organized body is charged with this
responsibility.
(_d_) The only organized body known to the New Testament is the local
church, and this is the only body, of any sort, competent to have charge
of the ordinances. The invisible church has no officers.
(_e_) The New Testament accounts indicate that the Lord’s Supper was
observed only at regular appointed meetings of local churches, and was
observed by these churches as regularly organized bodies.
(_f_) Since the duty of examining the qualifications of candidates for
baptism and for membership is vested in the local church and is essential
to its distinct existence, the analogy of the ordinances would lead us to
believe that the scrutiny of qualifications for participation in the
Lord’s Supper rests with the same body.
(_g_) This care that only proper persons are admitted to the ordinances
should be shown, not by open or forcible debarring of the unworthy at the
time of the celebration, but by previous public instruction of the
congregation, and, if needful in the case of persistent offenders, by
subsequent private and friendly admonition.
“What is everybody’s business is nobody’s business.” If there be
any power of effective scrutiny, it must be lodged in the local
church. The minister is not to administer the ordinance of the
Lord’s Supper at his own option, any more than the ordinance of
Baptism. He is simply the organ of the church. He is to follow the
rules of the church as to invitations and as to the mode of
celebrating the ordinance, of course instructing the church as to
the order of the New Testament. In the case of sick members who
desire to communicate, brethren may be deputed to hold a special
meeting of the church at the private house or sick room, and then
only may the pastor officiate. If an invitation to the Communion
is given, it may well be in the following form: “Members in good
standing of other churches of like faith and practice are
cordially invited to partake with us.” But since the comity of
Baptist churches is universally acknowledged, and since Baptist
views with regard to the ordinances are so generally understood,
it should be taken for granted that all proper persons will be
welcome even if no invitation of any sort is given.
Mr. Spurgeon, as we have seen, permitted unbaptized persons
temporarily to partake of the Lord’s Supper unchallenged, but if
there appeared a disposition to make participation habitual, one
of the deacons in a private interview explained Baptist doctrine
and urged the duty of baptism. If this advice was not taken,
participation in the Lord’s Supper naturally ceased. Dr. P. S.
Henson proposes a middle path between open and close communion, as
follows: “Preach and urge faith in Jesus and obedience to him.
Leave choice with participants themselves. It is not wise to set
up a judgment‐seat at the Lord’s table. Always preach the
Scriptural order—1. Faith in Jesus; 2. Obedience in Baptism; 2.
Observance of the Lord’s Supper.” J. B. Thomas: “Objections to
strict communion come with an ill grace from pedobaptists who
withhold communion from their own baptized, whom they have
forcibly made quasi‐members in spite of the only protest they are
capable of offering, and whom they have retained as subjects of
discipline without their consent.”
A. H. Strong, Cleveland Sermon on Our Denominational Outlook, May
19, 1904—“If I am asked whether Baptists still hold to restricted
communion, I answer that our principle has not changed, but that
many of us apply the principle in a different manner from that of
our fathers. We believe that Baptism logically precedes the Lord’s
Supper, as birth precedes the taking of nourishment, and
regeneration precedes sanctification. We believe that the order of
the ordinances is an important point of Christian doctrine, and
itself teaches Christian doctrine. Hence we proclaim it and adhere
to it, in our preaching and our practice. But we do not turn the
Lord’s Supper into a judgment‐seat, or turn the officers of the
church into detectives. We teach the truth, and expect that the
truth will win its way. We are courteous to all who come among us;
and expect that they in turn will have the courtesy to respect our
convictions and to act accordingly. But there is danger here that
we may break from our moorings and drift into indifferentism with
regard to the ordinances. The recent advocacy of open church‐
membership is but the logical consequence of a previous concession
of open communion. I am persuaded that this new doctrine is
confined to very few among us. The remedy for this false
liberalism is to be found in that same Christ who solves for us
all other problems. It is this Christ who sets the solitary in
families, and who makes of one every nation that dwells on the
face of the earth. Christian denominations are at least
temporarily his appointment. Loyalty to the body which seems to us
best to represent his truth is also loyalty to him. Love for
Christ does not involve the surrender of the ties of family, or
nation, or denomination, but only consecrates and ennobles them.
“Yet Christ is King in Zion. There is but one army of the living
God, even though there are many divisions. We can emphasize our
unity with other Christian bodies, rather than the differences
between us. We can regard them as churches of the Lord Jesus, even
though they are irregularly constituted. As a marriage ceremony
may be valid, even though performed without a license and by an
unqualified administrator; and as an ordination may be valid, even
though the ordinary laying‐on of hands be omitted; so the
ordinance of the Lord’s Supper as administered in pedobaptist
churches may be valid, though irregular in its accompaniments and
antecedents. Though we still protest against the modern
perversions of the New Testament doctrine as to the subjects and
mode of Baptism, we hold with regard to the Lord’s Supper that
irregularity is not invalidity, and that we may recognize as
churches even those bodies which celebrate the Lord’s Supper
without having been baptized. Our faith in the larger Christ is
bringing us out from our denominational isolation into an
inspiring recognition of our oneness with the universal church of
God throughout the world.” On the whole subject, see Madison
Avenue Lectures, 217‐260; and A. H. Strong, on Christian Truth and
its Keepers, in Philosophy and Religion, 238‐244.
E. Special objections to open communion.
The advocates of this view claim that baptism, as not being an
indispensable term of salvation, cannot properly be made an indispensable
term of communion.
Robert Hall, Works, 1:285, held that there can be no proper terms
of communion which are not also terms of salvation. He claims that
“we are expressly commanded to tolerate in the church all those
diversities of opinion which are not inconsistent with salvation.”
For the open communion view, see also John M. Mason, Works, 1:369;
Princeton Review, Oct. 1850; Bib. Sac., 21:449; 24:482; 25:401;
Spirit of the Pilgrims, 6:103, 142. But, as Curtis remarks, in his
Progress of Baptist Principles, 292, this principle would utterly
frustrate the very objects for which visible churches were
founded—to be “_the pillar and ground of the truth_” (_1 Tim.
3:15_); for truth is set forth as forcibly in ordinances as in
doctrine.
In addition to what has already been said, we reply:
(_a_) This view is contrary to the belief and practice of all but an
insignificant fragment of organized Christendom.
A portion of the English Baptists, and the Free Will Baptists in
America, are the only bodies which in their standards of faith
accept and maintain the principles of open communion. As to the
belief and practice of the Methodist Episcopal denomination, the
New York Christian Advocate states the terms of communion as
being: 1. Discipleship; 2. Baptism; 3. Consistent church life, as
required in the “Discipline”; and F. G. Hibbard, Christian
Baptism, 174, remarks that, “in one principle the Baptist and
pedobaptist churches agree. They both agree in rejecting from the
communion at the table of the Lord, and denying the rights of
church fellowship to all who have not been baptized. Valid
baptism, they consider, is essential to constitute visible church
membership. This also we [Methodists] hold.... The charge of close
communion is no more applicable to the Baptists than to us.”
The Interior states the Presbyterian position as follows: “The
difference between our Baptist brethren and ourselves is an
important difference. We agree with them, however, in saying that
unbaptized persons should not partake of the Lord’s Supper. Close
communion, in our judgment, is a more defensible position than
open communion.” Dr. John Hall: “If I believed, with the Baptists,
that none are baptized but those who are immersed on profession of
faith, I should, with them, refuse to commune with any others.”
As to the views of Congregationalists, we quote from Dwight,
Systematic Theology, sermon 160—“It is an indispensable
qualification for this ordinance that the candidate for communion
be a member of the visible church of Christ, in full standing. By
this I intend that he should be a man of piety; that he should
have made a public profession of religion; and that he should have
been baptized.” The Independent: “We have never been disposed to
charge the Baptist church with any special narrowness or bigotry
in their rule of admission to the Lord’s table. We do not see how
it differs from that commonly admitted and established among
Presbyterian churches.”
The Episcopal standards and authorities are equally plain. The
Book of Common Prayer, Order of Confirmation, declares: “There
shall none be admitted to the holy communion, until such time as
he be confirmed, or be ready and desirous to be
confirmed”—confirmation always coming after baptism. Wall, History
of Infant Baptism, part 2, chapter 9—“No church ever gave the
communion to any persons before they were baptized. Among all the
absurdities that ever were held, none ever maintained that any
person should partake of the communion before he was baptized.”
(_b_) It assumes an unscriptural inequality between the two ordinances.
The Lord’s Supper holds no higher rank in Scripture than does Baptism. The
obligation to commune is no more binding than the obligation to profess
faith by being baptized. Open communion, however, treats baptism as if it
were optional, while it insists upon communion as indispensable.
Robert Hall should rather have said: “No church has a right to
establish terms of baptism which are not also terms of salvation,”
for baptism is most frequently in Scripture connected with the
things that accompany salvation. We believe faith to be one
prerequisite, but not the only one. We may hold a person to be a
Christian, without thinking him entitled to commune unless he has
been also baptized.
Ezra’s reform in abolishing mixed marriages with the surrounding
heathen was not narrow nor bigoted nor intolerant. Miss Willard
said well that from the Gerizim of holy beatitudes there comes a
voice: “Blessed are the inclusive, for they shall be included,”
and from Mount Ebal a voice, saying: “Sad are the exclusive, for
they shall be excluded.” True liberality is both Christian and
wise. We should be just as liberal as Christ himself, and no more
so. Even Miss Willard would not include rum‐sellers in the
Christian Temperance Union, nor think that town blessed that did
not say to saloon keepers: “Repent, or go.” The choir is not
narrow because it does not include those who can only make
discords, nor is the sheepfold intolerant that refuses to include
wolves, nor the medical society that excludes quacks, nor the
church that does not invite the disobedient and schismatic to its
communion.
(_c_) It tends to do away with baptism altogether. If the highest
privilege of church membership may be enjoyed without baptism, baptism
loses its place and importance as the initiatory ordinance of the church.
Robert Hall would admit to the Lord’s Supper those who deny
Baptism to be perpetually binding on the church. A foreigner may
love this country, but he cannot vote at our elections unless he
has been naturalized. Ceremonial rites imply ceremonial
qualifications. Dr. Meredith in Brooklyn said to his great Bible
Class that a man, though not a Christian, but who felt himself a
sinner and needing Christ, could worthily partake of the Lord’s
Supper. This is the logic of open communion. The Supper is not
limited to baptized persons, nor to church members, nor even to
converted people, but belongs also to the unconverted world. This
is not only to do away with Baptism, but to make the Lord’s Supper
a converting ordinance.
(_d_) It tends to do away with all discipline. When Christians offend, the
church must withdraw its fellowship from them. But upon the principle of
open communion, such withdrawal is impossible, since the Lord’s Supper,
the highest expression of church fellowship, is open to every person who
regards himself as a Christian.
H. F. Colby: “Ought we to acknowledge that evangelical
pedobaptists are qualified to partake of the Lord’s Supper? We are
ready to admit them on precisely the same terms on which we admit
ourselves. Our communion bars come to be a protest, but from no
plan of ours. They become a protest merely as every act of loyalty
to truth becomes a protest against error.” Constitutions of the
Holy Apostles, book 2, section 7 (about 250 A. D.)—“But if they
[those who have been convicted of wickedness] afterwards repent
and turn from their error, then we receive them as we receive the
heathen, when they wish to repent, into the church indeed to hear
the word, but do not receive them to communion until they have
received the seal of baptism and are made complete Christians.”
(_e_) It tends to do away with the visible church altogether. For no
visible church is possible, unless some sign of membership be required, in
addition to the signs of membership in the invisible church. Open
communion logically leads to open church membership, and a church
membership open to all, without reference to the qualifications required
in Scripture, or without examination on the part of the church as to the
existence of these qualifications in those who unite with it, is virtually
an identification of the church with the world, and, without protest from
Scripturally constituted bodies, would finally result in its actual
extinction.
Dr. Walcott Calkins, in Andover Review: “It has never been denied
that the Puritan way of maintaining the purity and doctrinal
soundness of the churches is to secure a soundly converted
membership. There is one denomination of Puritans which has never
deviated a hair’s breadth from this way. The Baptists have always
insisted that regenerate persons only ought to receive the
sacraments of the church. And they have depended absolutely upon
this provision for the purity and doctrinal soundness of their
churches.”
At the Free Will Baptist Convention at Providence, Oct., 1874, the
question came up of admitting pedobaptists to membership. This was
disposed of by resolving that “Christian baptism is a personal act
of public consecration to Christ, and that believers’ baptism and
immersion alone, as baptism, are fundamental principles of the
denomination.” In other words, unimmersed believers would not be
admitted to membership. But is it not the Lord’s church? Have we a
right to exclude? Is this not bigotry? The Free Will Baptist
answers: “No, it is only loyalty to truth.”
We claim that, upon the same principle, he should go further, and
refuse to admit to the communion those whom he refuses to admit to
church membership. The reasons assigned for acting upon the
opposite principle are sentimental rather than rational. See John
Stuart Mill’s definition of sentimentality, quoted in Martineau’s
Essays, 1:94—“Sentimentality consists in setting the sympathetic
aspect of things, or their loveableness, above their æsthetic
aspect, their beauty; or above the moral aspect of them, their
right or wrong.”
OBJECTIONS TO STRICT COMMUNION, AND ANSWERS TO THEM (condensed
from Arnold, Terms of Communion, 82):
“1st. _Primitive rules are not applicable now._ Reply: (1) The
laws of Christ are unchangeable. (2) The primitive order ought to
be restored.
“2d. _Baptism, as an external rite, is of less importance than
love._ Reply: (1) It is not inconsistent with love, but the mark
of love, to keep Christ’s commandments. (2) Love for our brethren
requires protest against their errors.
“3d. _Pedobaptists think themselves baptized._ Reply: (1) This is
a reason why they should act as if they believed it, not a reason
why we should act as if it were so. (2) We cannot submit our
consciences to their views of truth without harming ourselves and
them.
“4th. _Strict communion is a hindrance to union among Christians._
Reply: (1) Christ desires only union in the truth. (2) Baptists
are not responsible for the separation. (3) Mixed communion is not
a cure but a cause of disunion.
“5th. _The rule excludes from the communion baptized members of
pedobaptist churches._ Reply: (1) These persons are walking
disorderly, in promoting error. (2) The Lord’s Supper is a symbol
of church fellowship, not of fellowship for individuals, apart
from their church relations.
“6th. _A plea for dispensing with the rule exists in extreme cases
where persons must commune with us or not at all._ Reply: (1) It
is hard to fix limits to these exceptions: they would be likely to
encroach more and more, till the rule became merely nominal. (2)
It is a greater privilege and means of grace, in such
circumstances, to abstain from communing, than contrary to
principle to participate. (3) It is not right to participate with
others, where we cannot invite them reciprocally.
“7. _Alleged inconsistency of our practice._—(_a_) Since we expect
to commune in heaven. Reply: This confounds Christian fellowship
with church fellowship. We do commune with pedobaptists
spiritually, here as hereafter. We do not expect to partake of the
Lord’s Supper with them, or with others, in heaven. (_b_) Since we
reject the better and receive the worse. Reply: We are not at
liberty to refuse to apply Christ’s outward rule, because we
cannot equally apply his inward spiritual rule of character.
Pedobaptists withhold communion from those they regard as
unbaptized, though they may be more spiritual than some in the
church. (_c_) Since we recognize pedobaptists as brethren in union
meetings, exchange of pulpits, _etc._ Reply: None of these acts of
fraternal fellowship imply the church communion which admission to
the Lord’s table would imply. This last would recognize them as
baptized: the former do not.
“8th. _Alleged impolicy of our practice._ Reply: (1) This
consideration would be pertinent, only if we were at liberty to
change our practice when it was expedient, or was thought to be
so. (2) Any particular truth will inspire respect in others in
proportion as its advocates show that they respect it. In England
our numbers have diminished, compared with the population, in the
ratio of 33 per cent; here we have increased 50 per cent. in
proportion to the ratio of population.
“_Summary._ Open communion must be justified, if at all, on one of
four grounds: First, that baptism is not prerequisite to
communion. But this is opposed to the belief and practice of all
churches. Secondly, that immersion on profession of faith is not
essential to baptism. But this is renouncing Baptist principles
altogether. Thirdly, that the individual, and not the church, is
to be the judge of his qualifications for admission to the
communion. But this is contrary to sound reason, and fatal to the
ends for which the church is instituted. For, if the conscience of
the individual is to be the rule of the action of the church in
regard to his admission to the Lord’s Supper, why not also with
regard to his regeneration, his doctrinal belief, and his
obedience to Christ’s commands generally? Fourthly, that the
church has no responsibility in regard to the qualifications of
those who come to her communion. But this is abandoning the
principle of the independence of the churches, and their
accountableness to Christ, and it overthrows all church
discipline.”
See also Hovey, in Bib. Sac., 1862:133; Pepper, in Bap. Quar.,
1867:216; Curtis on Communion, 292; Howell, Terms of Communion;
Williams, The Lord’s Supper; Theodosia Ernest, pub. by Am. Bap.
Pub. Soc.; Wilkinson, The Baptist Principle. In concluding our
treatment of Ecclesiology, we desire to call attention to the fact
that Jacob, the English Churchman, in his Ecclesiastical Polity of
the N. T., and Cunningham, the Scotch Presbyterian, in his Croall
Lectures for 1886, have furnished Baptists with much valuable
material for the defence of the New Testament doctrine of the
Church and its Ordinances. In fact, a complete statement of the
Baptist positions might easily be constructed from the concessions
of their various opponents. See A. H. Strong, on Unconscious
Assumptions of Communion Polemics, in Philosophy and Religion,
245‐249.
PART VIII. ESCHATOLOGY, OR THE DOCTRINE OF FINAL THINGS.
Neither the individual Christian character, nor the Christian church as a
whole, attains its destined perfection in this life (Rom. 8:24). This
perfection is reached in the world to come (1 Cor. 13:10). As preparing
the way for the kingdom of God in its completeness, certain events are to
take place, such as death, Christ’s second coming, the resurrection of the
body, the general judgment. As stages in the future condition of men,
there is to be an intermediate and an ultimate state, both for the
righteous and for the wicked. We discuss these events and states in what
appears from Scripture to be the order of their occurrence.
_Rom. 8:24_—“_in hope were we saved: but hope that is seen is not
hope: for who hopeth for that which he seeth?_” _1 Cor.
13:10_—“_when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part
will be done away._” Original sin is not wholly eradicated from
the Christian, and the Holy Spirit is not yet sole ruler. So, too,
the church is still in a state of conflict, and victory is
hereafter. But as the Christian life attains its completeness only
in the future, so with the life of sin. Death begins here, but
culminates hereafter. _James 1:15_—“_the sin, when it is full
grown, bringeth forth death._” The wicked man here has only a
foretaste of “_the wrath to come_” (_Mat. 3:7_). We may “_lay up
... treasures in heaven_” (_Mat. 6:20_), but we may also
“_treasure up for ourselves wrath_” (_Rom. 2:5_), _i. e._, lay up
treasures in hell.
Dorner: “To the actuality of the consummation of the church
belongs a cessation of reproduction through which there is
constantly renewed a world which the church must subdue.... The
mutually external existence of spirit and nature must give way to
a perfect internal existence. Their externality to each other is
the ground of the mortality of the natural side, and of its being
a means of temptation to the spiritual side. For in this
externality the natural side has still too great independence and
exerts a determining power over the personality.... Art, the
beautiful, receives in the future state its special place; for it
is the way of art to delight in visible presentation, to achieve
the classical and perfect with unfettered play of its powers.
Every one morally perfect will thus wed the good to the beautiful.
In the rest, there will be no inactivity; and in the activity
also, no unrest.”
Schleiermacher: “Eschatology is essentially prophetic; and is
therefore vague and indefinite, like all unfulfilled prophecy.”
Schiller’s Thekla: “Every thought of beautiful, trustful seeming
Stands fulfilled in Heaven’s eternal day; Shrink not then from
erring and from dreaming,—Lofty sense lies oft in childish play.”
Frances Power Cobbe, Peak of Darien, 265—“Human nature is a ship
with the tide out; when the tide of eternity comes in, we shall
see the purpose of the ship.” Eschatology deals with the
precursors of Christ’s second coming, as well as with the second
coming itself. We are to labor for the coming of the kingdom of
God in society as well as in the individual and in the church, in
the present life as well as in the life to come.
Kidd, in his Principles of Western Civilization, says that
survives which helps the greatest number. But the greatest number
is always in the future. The theatre has become too wide for the
drama. Through the roof the eternal stars appear. The image of God
in man implies the equality of all men. Political equality implies
universal suffrage; economic equality implies universal profit.
Society has already transcended, first, city isolation, and
secondly, state isolation. The United States presents thus far the
largest free trade area in history. The next step is the unity of
the English speaking peoples. The days of separate nationalities
are numbered. _Laissez faire_ = surviving barbarism. There are
signs of larger ideas in art, ethics, literature, philosophy,
science, politics, economics, religion. Competition must be
moralized, and must take into account the future as well as the
present. See also Walter Rauschenbusch, Christianity and the
Social Crisis.
George B. Stevens, in Am. Jour. Theology, Oct. 1902: 666‐684,
asks: “Is there a self‐constituted New Testament Eschatology?” He
answers, for substance, that only three things are sure: 1. The
certain triumph of the kingdom—this being the kernel of truth in
the doctrine of Christ’s second coming; 2. the victory of life
over death—the truth in the doctrine of the resurrection; 3. the
principle of judgment—the truth at the basis of the belief in
rewards and punishments in the world to come. This meagre and
abstract residuum argues denial both of the unity and the
sufficiency of Scripture. Our view of inspiration, while it does
not assure us of minute details, does notwithstanding give us a
broad general outline of the future consummation, and guarantees
its trustworthiness by the word of Christ and his apostles.
Faith in that consummation is the main incitement to poetic
utterance and to lofty achievement. Shairp, Province of Poetry,
28—“If poetry be not a river fed from the clear wells that spring
on the highest summits of humanity, but only a canal to drain off
stagnant ditches from the flats, it may be a very useful sanitary
contrivance, but has not, in Bacon’s words, any ’participation of
divineness.’” Shakespeare uses prose for ideas detached from
emotion, such as the merrymaking of clowns or the maundering of
fools. But lofty thought with him puts on poetry as its singing
robe. Savage, Life beyond Death, 1‐5—“When Henry D. Thoreau lay
dying at Concord, his friend Parker Pillsbury sat by his bedside.
He leaned over, took him by the hand, and said: ‘Henry, you are so
near to the border now, can you see anything on the other side?’
And Thoreau answered: ‘One world at a time, Parker!’ But I cannot
help asking about that other world, and if I belong to a future
world as well as to this, my life will be a very different one.”
Jesus knew our need of certain information about the future, and
therefore he said: “_In my Father’s house are many mansions; if it
were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place
for you_” (_John 14:2_).
Hutton, Essays, 2:211—“Imagination may be powerful without being
fertile; it may summon up past scenes and live in them without
being able to create new ones. National unity and supernatural
guidance were beliefs which kept Hebrew poetry from being fertile
or original in its dealings with human story; for national pride
is conservative, not inventive, and believers in actual providence
do not care to live in a world of invention. The Jew saw in
history only the illustration of these two truths. He was never
thoroughly stirred by mere individual emotion. The modern poet is
a student of beauty; the O. T. poet a student of God. To the
latter all creation is a mere shadow; the essence of its beauty
and the sustaining power of its life are in the spiritual world.
Go beyond the spiritual nature of man, and the sympathy of the
Hebrew poet is dried up at once. His poetry was true and divine,
but at the expense of variousness of insight and breadth of
sympathy. It was heliocentric rather than geocentric. Only Job,
the latest, is a conscious effort of the imagination.” Apocalyptic
poetry for these reasons was most natural to the Hebrew mind.
Balfour, Foundations of Belief, 66—“Somewhere and for some Being,
there shines an unchanging splendor of beauty, of which in nature
and in art we see, each of us from his own standpoint, only
passing gleams and stray reflections, whose different aspects we
cannot now coördinate, whose import we cannot fully comprehend,
but which at least is something other than the chance play of
subjective sensibility or the far‐off echo of ancestral lusts.”
Dewey, Psychology, 200—“All products of the creative imagination
are unconscious testimonials to the unity of spirit which binds
man to man, and man to nature, in one organic whole.” Tennyson,
Idylls of the King: “As from beyond the limit of the world, Like
the last echo born of a great cry, Sounds, as if some fair city
were one voice Around a king returning from his wars.” See, on the
whole subject of Eschatology, Luthardt, Lehre von den letzten
Dingen, and Saving Truths of Christianity; Hodge, Systematic
Theology, 3:713‐880; Hovey, Biblical Eschatology; Heagle, That
Blessed Hope.
I. Physical Death.
Physical death is the separation of the soul from the body. We distinguish
it from spiritual death, or the separation of the soul from God; and from
the second death, or the banishment from God and final misery of the
reünited soul and body of the wicked.
Spiritual death: _Is. 59:2_—“_but your iniquities have separated
between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from
you, so that he will not hear_”; _Rom. 7:24_—“_Wretched man that I
am! who shall deliver me out of the body of this death?_” _Eph.
2:1_—“_dead through your trespasses and sins._” The second death:
_Rev. 2:11_—“_He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second
death_”; _20:14_—“_And death and Hades were cast into the lake of
fire. This is the second death, even the lake of fire_”;
_21:8_—“_But for the fearful, and unbelieving, and abominable, and
murderers, and fornicators, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all
liars, their part shall be in the lake that burneth with fire and
brimstone; which is the second death._”
Julius Müller, Doctrine of Sin, 2:303—“Spiritual death, the inner
discord and enslavement of the soul, and the misery resulting
therefrom, to which belongs that other death, the second death, an
outward condition corresponding to that inner slavery.” Trench,
Epistles to the Seven Churches, 151—“This phrase [‘_second
death_’] is itself a solemn protest against the Sadduceeism and
Epicureanism which would make natural death the be‐all and the
end‐all of existence. As there is a life beyond the present life
for the faithful, so there is death beyond that which falls under
our eyes for the wicked.” E. G. Robinson: “The second death is the
continuance of spiritual death in another and timeless existence.”
Hudson, Scientific Demonstration of a Future Life, 222—“If a man
has a power that transcends the senses, it is at least presumptive
evidence that it does not perish when the senses are
extinguished.... The activity of the subjective mind is in inverse
proportion to that of the body, though the objective mind weakens
with the body and perishes with the brain.”
Prof. H. H. Bawden: “Consciousness is simply the growing of an
organism, while the organism is just that which grows.
Consciousness is a function, not a thing, not an order of
existence at all. It is the universe coming to a focus, flowering
so to speak in a finite centre. Society is an organism in the same
sense that the human being is an organism. The spatial separation
of the elements of the social organism is relatively no greater
than the separation of the unit factors of the body. As the
neurone cannot deny the consciousness which is the function of the
body, so the individual member of society has no reason for
denying the existence of a cosmic life of the organism which we
call society.”
Emma M. Caillard, on Man in the Light of Evolution, in Contemp.
Rev., Dec. 1893:878—“Man is nature risen into the consciousness of
its relationship to the divine. There is no receding from this
point. When ‘that which drew from out the boundless deep turns
again home,’ the persistence of each personal life is
necessitated. Human life, as it is, includes, though it transcends
the lower forms through which it has developed. Human life, as it
will be, must include though it may transcend its present
manifestation, _viz._, personality.” “Sometime, when all life’s
lessons have been learned, And suns and stars forevermore have
set, And things which our weak judgments here have spurned, The
things o’er which we grieved with lashes wet, Will flash before us
through our life’s dark night, As stars shine most in deepest
tints of blue: And we shall see how all God’s plans were right,
And most that seemed reproof was love most true: And if sometimes
commingled with life’s wine We find the wormwood and rebel and
shrink, Be sure a wiser hand than yours or mine Pours out this
portion for our lips to drink. And if some friend we love is lying
low, Where human kisses cannot reach his face, O do not blame the
loving Father so, But wear your sorrow with obedient grace; And
you shall shortly know that lengthened breath Is not the sweetest
gift God sends his friend, And that sometimes the sable pall of
death Conceals the fairest boon his love can send. If we could
push ajar the gates of life, And stand within, and all God’s
working see, We could interpret all this doubt and strife, And for
each mystery find a key.”
Although physical death falls upon the unbeliever as the original penalty
of sin, to all who are united in Christ it loses its aspect of penalty,
and becomes a means of discipline and of entrance into eternal life.
To the Christian, physical death is not a penalty: _see Ps.
116:15_—“_Precious in the sight of Jehovah Is the death of his
saints_”; _Rom. 8:10_—“_And if Christ is in you, the body is dead
because of sin; but the spirit is life because of righteousness_”;
_14:8_—“_For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; or whether we
die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we
are the Lord’s_”; _1 Cor. 3:22_—“_whether Paul, or Apollos, or
Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or
things to come; all are yours_”; _15:55_—“_O death, where is thy
victory? O death, where is thy sting?_” _1 Pet. 4:6_—“_For unto
this end was the gospel preached even to the dead, that they might
be judged indeed according to men in the flesh, but live according
to God in the spirit_”; _cf._ _Rom. 1:18_—“_For the wrath of God
is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and
unrighteousness of men, who hinder the truth in unrighteousness_”;
_8:1, 2_—“_There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are
in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus
made me free from the law of sin and of death_”; _Heb. 12:6_—“_For
whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth._”
Dr. Hovey says that “the present sufferings of believers are in
the nature of discipline, with an aspect of retribution; while the
present sufferings of unbelievers are retributive, with a glance
toward reformation.” We prefer to say that all penalty has been
borne by Christ, and that, for him who is justified in Christ,
suffering of whatever kind is of the nature of fatherly
chastening, never of judicial retribution; see our discussion of
the Penalty of Sin, pages 652‐660.
“We see but dimly through the mists and vapors Amid these earthly
damps; What are to us but sad funereal tapers May be Heaven’s
distant lamps. There is no death,—what seems so is transition;
This life of mortal breath Is but a suburb of the life Elysian
Whose portal men call death.” “’Tis meet that we should pause
awhile, Ere we put off this mortal coil, And in the stillness of
old age, Muse on our earthly pilgrimage.” Shakespeare, Romeo and
Juliet, 4:5—“Heaven and yourself Had part in this fair maid; now
Heaven hath all, And all the better is it for the maid: Your part
in her you could not keep from death, But Heaven keeps his part in
eternal life. The most you sought was her promotion, For ’t was
your heaven she should be advanced; And weep ye now, seeing she is
advanced Above the clouds, as high as Heaven itself?” Phœbe Cary’s
Answered: “I thought to find some healing clime For her I loved;
she found that shore, That city whose inhabitants Are sick and
sorrowful no more. I asked for human love for her; The Loving knew
how best to still The infinite yearning of a heart Which but
infinity could fill. Such sweet communion had been ours, I prayed
that it might never end; My prayer is more than answered; now I
have an angel for my friend. I wished for perfect peace to soothe
The troubled anguish of her breast; And numbered with the loved
and called She entered on untroubled rest. Life was so fair a
thing to her, I wept and pleaded for its stay; My wish was granted
me, for lo! She hath eternal life to‐day!”
Victor Hugo: “The tomb is not a blind alley; it is a thoroughfare.
It closes with the twilight, to open with the dawn.... I feel that
I have not said the thousandth part of what is in me.... The
thirst for infinity proves infinity.” Shakespeare: “Nothing is
here for tears; nothing to wail, Or knock the breast; no weakness,
no contempt, Dispraise or blame; nothing but well and fair.” O. W.
Holmes: “Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift
seasons roll! Leave thy low‐vaulted past! Let each new temple,
nobler than the last Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free, Leaving thine outgrown shell by
life’s unresting sea!” J. G. Whittier: “So when Time’s veil shall
fall asunder, The soul may know No fearful change or sudden
wonder, Nor sink the weight of mystery under, But with the upward
rise, and with the vastness grow.”
To neither saint nor sinner is death a cessation of being. This we
maintain, against the advocates of annihilation:
1. Upon rational grounds.
(_a_) The metaphysical argument.—The soul is simple, not compounded.
Death, in matter, is the separation of parts. But in the soul there are no
parts to be separated. The dissolution of the body, therefore, does not
necessarily work a dissolution of the soul. But, since there is an
immaterial principle in the brute, and this argument taken by itself might
seem to prove the immortality of the animal creation equally with that of
man, we pass to consider the next argument.
The Gnostics and the Manichæans held that beasts had knowledge and
might pray. The immateriality of the brute mind was probably the
consideration which led Leibnitz, Bishop Butler, Coleridge, John
Wesley, Lord Shaftesbury, Mary Somerville, James Hogg, Toplady,
Lamartine, and Louis Agassiz to encourage the belief in animal
immortality. See Bp. Butler, Analogy, part i, chap. i (Bohn’s ed.,
81‐91); Agassiz, Essay on Classification, 99—“Most of the
arguments for the immortality of man apply equally to the
permanency of this principle in other living beings.” Elsewhere
Agassiz says of animals: “I cannot doubt of their immortality any
more than I doubt of my own.” Lord Shaftesbury in 1881 remarked:
“I have ever believed in a happy future for animals; I cannot say
or conjecture how or where; but sure I am that the love, so
manifested by dogs especially, is an emanation from the divine
essence, and as such it can, or rather, it will, never be
extinguished.” St. Francis of Assisi preached to birds, and called
sun, moon, earth, fire, water, stones, flowers, crickets, and
death, his brothers and sisters. “He knew not if the brotherhood
His homily had understood; He only knew that to one ear The
meaning of his words was clear” (Longfellow, The Sermon of St.
Francis—to the birds). “If death dissipates the sagacity of the
elephant, why not that of his captor?” See Buckner, Immortality of
Animals; William Adams Brown, Christian Theology in Outline, 240.
Mansel, Metaphysics, 371, maintains that all this argument proves
is that the objector cannot show the soul to be compound, and so
cannot show that it is destructible. Calderwood, Moral Philosophy,
259—“The facts which point toward the termination of our present
state of existence are connected with our physical nature, not
with our mental.” John Fiske, Destiny of the Creature, 110—“With
his illegitimate hypothesis of annihilation, the materialist
transgresses the bounds of experience quite as widely as the poet
who sings of the New Jerusalem, with its river of life and its
streets of gold. Scientifically speaking, there is not a particle
of evidence for either view.” John Fiske, Life Everlasting,
80‐85—“How could immortal man have been produced through heredity
from an ephemeral brute? We do not know. Nature’s habit is to make
prodigious leaps, but only after long preparation. Slowly rises
the water in the tank, inch by inch through many a weary hour,
until at length it overflows, and straightway vast systems of
machinery are awakened into rumbling life. Slowly the ellipse
becomes eccentric, until suddenly the finite ellipse becomes an
infinite paraboloid.”
Ladd, Philosophy of Mind, 206—“The ideas of dividing up or
splitting off are not applicable to mind. The argument for the
indestructibility of mind as growing out of its indiscerptibility,
and the argument by which Kant confuted it, are alike absurd
within the realm of mental phenomena.” Adeney, Christianity and
Evolution, 127—“Nature, this argument shows, has nothing to say
against the immortality of that which is above the range of
physical structure.” Lotze: “Everything which has once originated
will endure forever so soon as it possesses an unalterable value
for the coherent system of the world; but it will, as a matter of
course, in turn cease to be, if this is not the case.” Bowne, Int.
to Psych. Theory, 315‐318—“Of what use would brutes be hereafter?
We may reply: Of what use are they here?... Those things which
have perennial significance for the universe will abide.” Bixby,
Crisis in Morals, 203—“In living beings there is always a pressure
toward larger and higher existence.... The plant must grow, must
bloom, must sow its seeds, or it withers away.... The aim is to
bring forth consciousness, and in greatest fulness.... Beasts of
prey and other enemies to the ascending path of life are to be
swept out of the way.”
But is not the brute a part of that Nature which has been
subjected to vanity, which groans and travails in pain, and which
waits to be redeemed? The answer seems to be that the brute is a
mere appendage to man, has no independent value in the creation,
is incapable of ethical life or of communion with God the source
of life, and so has no guarantee of continuance. Man on the other
hand is of independent value. But this is to anticipate the
argument which follows. It is sufficient here to point out that
there is no proof that consciousness is dependent upon the soul’s
connection with a physical organism. McLane, Evolution in
Religion, 261—“As the body may preserve its form and be to a
degree made to act after the psychic element is lost by removal of
the brain, so this psychic element may exist, and act according to
its nature after the physical element ceases to exist.” Hovey,
Bib. Eschatology, 19—“If I am in a house, I can look upon
surrounding objects only through its windows; but open the door
and let me go out of the house, and the windows are no longer of
any use to me.” Shaler, Interpretation of Nature, 295—“To
perpetuate mind after death is less surprising than to perpetuate
or transmit mind here by inheritance.” See also Martineau, Study,
2:332‐337, 363‐365.
William James, in his Essay on Human Immortality, argues that
thought is not necessarily a _productive_ function of the brain;
it may rather be a permissive or _transmissive_ function. Thought
is not _made_ in the brain, so that when the brain perishes the
soul dies. The brain is only the organ for the _transmission_ of
thought, just as the lens transmits the light which it does not
produce. There is a spiritual world behind and above the material
world. Our brains are thin and half transparent places in the
veil, through which knowledge comes in. Savage, Life after Death,
289—“You may attach a dynamo for a time to some particular
machine. When you have removed the machine, you have not destroyed
the dynamo. You may attach it to some other machine and find that
you have the old time power. So the soul may not be confined to
one body.” These analogies seem to us to come short of proving
personal immortality. They belong to “psychology without a soul,”
and while they illustrate the persistence of some sort of life,
they do not render more probable the continuance of my individual
consciousness beyond the bounds of death. They are entirely
consistent with the pantheistic theory of a remerging of the
personal existence in the great whole of which it forms a part.
Tennyson, In Memoriam: “That each, who seems a separate whole,
Should move his rounds and, fusing all The skirts of self again,
should fall Remerging in the general Soul, Is faith as vague as
all unsweet.” See Pfleiderer, Die Ritschl’sche Theologie, 12;
Howison, Limits of Evolution, 279‐312.
Seth, Hegelianism: “For Hegel, immortality is only the permanence
of the Absolute, the abstract process. This is no more consoling
than the continued existence of the chemical elements of our
bodies in new transformations. Human self‐consciousness is a spark
struck in the dark, to die away on the darkness whence it has
arisen.” This is the only immortality of which George Eliot
conceived in her poem, The Immortal Choir: “O may I join the choir
invisible Of those immortal dead who live again In minds made
better by their presence; live In pulses stirred to generosity, In
deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn For miserable aims that end in
self, In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars, And
with their mild persistence urge man’s search To vaster issues.”
Those who hold to this unconscious immortality concede that death
is not a separation of parts, but rather a cessation of
consciousness; and that therefore, while the substance of human
nature may endure, mankind may ever develop into new forms,
without individual immortality. To this we reply, that man’s self‐
consciousness and self‐determination are different in kind from
the consciousness and determination of the brute. As man can
direct his self‐consciousness and self‐determination to immortal
ends, we have the right to believe this self‐consciousness and
self‐determination to be immortal. This leads us to the next
argument.
(_b_) The teleological argument.—Man, as an intellectual, moral, and
religious being, does not attain the end of his existence on earth. His
development is imperfect here. Divine wisdom will not leave its work
incomplete. There must be a hereafter for the full growth of man’s powers,
and for the satisfaction of his aspirations. Created, unlike the brute,
with infinite capacities for moral progress, there must be an immortal
existence in which those capacities shall be brought into exercise. Though
the wicked forfeit all claim to this future, we have here an argument from
God’s love and wisdom to the immortality of the righteous.
In reply to this argument, it has been said that many right wishes
are vain. Mill, Essays on Religion, 294—“Desire for food implies
enough to eat, now and forever? hence an eternal supply of
cabbage?” But our argument proceeds upon three presuppositions:
(1) that a holy and benevolent God exists; (2) that he has made
man in his image; (3) that man’s true end is holiness and likeness
to God. Therefore, what will answer the true end of man will be
furnished; but that is not cabbage—it is holiness and love, _i.
e._, God himself. See Martineau, Study, 2:370‐381.
The argument, however, is valuable only in its application to the
righteous. God will not treat the righteous as the tyrant of
Florence treated Michael Angelo, when he bade him carve out of ice
a statue, which would melt under the first rays of the sun. In the
case of the wicked, the other law of retribution comes in—the
taking away of “_even that which he hath_” (_Mat. 25:29_). Since
we are all wicked, the argument is not satisfactory, unless we
take into account the further facts of atonement and
justification—facts of which we learn from revelation alone.
But while, taken by itself, this rational argument might be called
defective, and could never prove that man may not attain his end
in the continued existence of the race, rather than in that of the
individual, the argument appears more valuable as a rational
supplement to the facts already mentioned, and seems to render
certain at least the immortality of those upon whom God has set
his love, and in whom he has wrought the beginnings of
righteousness.
Lord Erskine: “Inferior animals have no instincts or faculties
which are not subservient to the ends and purposes of their being.
Man’s reason, and faculties endowed with power to reach the most
distant worlds, would be useless if his existence were to
terminate in the grave.” There would be wastefulness in the
extinction of great minds; see Jackson, James Martineau, 439. As
water is implied by the organization of the fish, and air by that
of the bird, so “the existence of spiritual power within us is
likewise presumption that some fitting environment awaits the
spirit when it shall be set free and perfected, and sex and death
can be dispensed with” (Newman Smyth, Place of Death in Evolution,
106). Nägeli, the German botanist, says that Nature tends to
perfection. Yet the mind hardly begins to awake, ere the bodily
powers decline (George, Progress and Poverty, 505). “Character
grows firmer and solider as the body ages and grows weaker. Can
character be vitally implicated in the act of physical
dissolution?” (Upton, Hibbert Lectures, 353). If a rational and
moral Deity has caused the gradual evolution in humanity of the
ideas of right and wrong, and has added to it the faculty of
creating ethical ideals, must he not have provided some
satisfaction for the ethical needs which this development has thus
called into existence? (Balfour, Foundations of Belief, 351).
Royce, Conception of God, 50, quotes Le Conte as follows: “Nature
is the womb _in_ which, and evolution the process _by_ which, are
generated sons of God. Without immortality this whole process is
balked—the whole process of cosmic evolution is futile. Shall God
be so long and at so great pains to achieve a _spirit_, capable of
communing with himself, and then allow it to lapse again into
nothingness?” John Fiske, Destiny of Man, 116, accepts the
immortality of the soul by “a supreme act of faith in the
reasonableness of God’s work.” If man is the end of the creative
process and the object of God’s care, then the soul’s career
cannot be completed with its present life upon the earth (Newman
Smyth, Place of Death in Evolution, 92, 93). Bowne, Philosophy of
Theism, 254—“Neither God nor the future life is needed to pay us
for present virtue, but rather as the condition without which our
nature falls into irreconcilable discord with itself, and passes
on to pessimism and despair. High and continual effort is
impossible without correspondingly high and abiding hopes.... It
is no more selfish to desire to live hereafter than it is to
desire to live to‐morrow.” Dr. M. B. Anderson used to say that
there must be a heaven for canal horses, washerwomen, and college
presidents, because they do not get their deserts in this life.
Life is a series of commencements rather than of accomplished
ends. Longfellow, on Charles Sumner: “Death takes us by surprise,
And stays our hurrying feet; The great design unfinished lies, Our
lives are incomplete. But in the dark unknown Perfect their
circles seem, Even as a bridge’s arch of stone Is rounded in the
stream.” Robert Browning, Abt Vogler: “There never shall be one
lost good”; Prospice: “No work begun shall ever pause for death”;
“Pleasure must succeed to pleasure, else past pleasure turns to
pain; And this first life claims a second, else I count its good
no gain”; Old Pictures in Florence: “We are faulty—why not? We
have time in store”; Grammarian’s Funeral: “What’s time? Leave Now
for dogs and apes,—Man has Forever.” Robert Browning wrote in his
wife’s Testament the following testimony of Dante: “Thus I
believe, thus I affirm, thus I am certain it is, that from this
life I shall pass to another better, there where that lady lives,
of whom my soul was enamored.” And Browning says in a letter: “It
is a great thing—the greatest—that a human being should have
passed the probation of life, and sum up its experience in a
witness to the power and love of God.... I see even more reason to
hold by the same hope.”
(_c_) The ethical argument.—Man is not, in this world, adequately punished
for his evil deeds. Our sense of justice leads us to believe that God’s
moral administration will be vindicated in a life to come. Mere extinction
of being would not be a sufficient penalty, nor would it permit degrees of
punishment corresponding to degrees of guilt. This is therefore an
argument from God’s justice to the immortality of the wicked. The guilty
conscience demands a state after death for punishment.
This is an argument from God’s justice to the immortality of the
wicked, as the preceding was an argument from God’s love to the
immortality of the righteous. “History defies our moral sense by
giving a peaceful end to Sulla.” Louis XV and Madame Pompadour
died in their beds, after a life of extreme luxury. Louis XVI and
his queen, though far more just and pure, perished by an appalling
tragedy. The fates of these four cannot be explained by the
wickedness of the latter pair and the virtue of the former.
Alexander the Sixth, the worst of the popes, was apparently
prosperous and happy in his iniquities. Though guilty of the most
shameful crimes, he was serenely impenitent, and to the last of
his days he defied both God and man. Since there is not an
execution of justice here, we feel that there must be a “_judgment
to come_,” such as that which terrified Felix (_Acts 24:25_).
Martineau, Study, 2:383‐388. Stopford A. Brooke, Justice: “Three
men went out one summer night, No care had they or aim, And dined
and drank. ‘Ere we go home We’ll have,’ they said, ‘a game.’ Three
girls began that summer night A life of endless shame, And went
through drink, disease, and death As swift as racing flame.
Lawless and homeless, foul, they died; Rich, loved and praised,
the men: But when they all shall meet with God, And Justice
speaks,—what then?” See John Caird, Fund. Ideas of Christianity,
2:255‐297. G. F. Wilkin, Control in Evolution: “Belief in
immortality is a practical necessity of evolution. If the
decisions of to‐day are to determine our eternal destiny, then it
is vastly more important to choose and act aright, than it is to
preserve our earthly life. The martyrs were right. Conscience is
vindicated. We can live for the ideal of manhood. Immortality is a
powerful reformatory instrument.” Martineau, Study of Religion,
2:388—“If Death gives a final discharge to the sinner and the
saint alike, Conscience has told us more lies than it has ever
called to their account.” Shakespeare, Henry V, 4:2—“If
[transgressors] have defeated the law and outrun native
punishment, though they can outstrip men, they have no wings to
fly from God”; Henry VI, 2d part, 5:2—“Can we outrun the heavens?”
Addison, Cato: “It must be so,—Plato, thou reasonest well.—Else
whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire, This longing after
immortality? Or whence this secret dread and inward horror Of
falling into naught? Why shrinks the soul Back on herself and
startles at destruction? ’Tis the divinity that stirs within us,
’Tis Heaven itself that points out a hereafter, And intimates
eternity to man.”
Gildersleeve, in The Independent, March 30, 1899—“Plato in the
Phædo argues for immortality from the alternation of opposites:
life must follow death as death follows life. But alternation of
opposites is not generation of opposites. He argues from
reminiscence. But this involves pre‐existence and a cycle of
incarnations, not the immortality which we crave. The soul abides,
as the idea abides, but there is no guarantee that it abides
forever. He argues from the uncompounded nature of the soul. But
we do not know the soul’s nature, and at most this is an analogy:
as soul is like God, invisible, it must like God abide. But this
is analogy, and nothing more.” William James, Will to Believe,
87—“That our whole physical life may lie soaking in a spiritual
atmosphere, a dimension of being which we at present have no organ
for apprehending, is vividly suggested to us by the analogy of the
life of our domestic animals. Our dogs, for example, are _in_ our
human life, but are not of it. They bite, but do not know what it
means; they submit to vivisection, and do not know the meaning of
that.”
George Eliot, walking with Frederic Myers in the Fellows’ Garden
at Trinity, Cambridge, “stirred somewhat beyond her wont, and
taking as her text the three words which have been used so often
as the inspiring trumpet‐calls of men—the words God, Immortality,
Duty—pronounced with terrible earnestness how inconceivable was
the first, how unbelievable the second, and yet how peremptory and
absolute the third.” But this idea of the infinite nature of Duty
is the creation of Christianity—the last infinite would never have
attained its present range and intensity, had it not been
indissolubly connected with the other two (Forrest, Christ of
History and Experience, 16).
This ethical argument has probably more power over the minds of
men than any other. Men believe in Minos and Rhadamanthus, if not
in the Elysian Fields. But even here it may be replied that the
judgment which conscience threatens may be, not immortality, but
extinction of being. We shall see, however, in our discussion of
the endlessness of future punishment, that mere annihilation
cannot satisfy the moral instinct which lies at the basis of this
argument. That demands a punishment proportioned in each case to
the guilt incurred by transgression. Extinction of being would be
the same to all. As it would not admit of degrees, so it would
not, in any case, sufficiently vindicate God’s righteousness. F.
W. Newman: “If man be not immortal, God is not just.”
But while this argument proves life and punishment for the wicked
after death, it leaves us dependent on revelation for our
knowledge how long that life and punishment will be. Kant’s
argument is that man strives equally for morality and for well‐
being; but morality often requires the sacrifice of well‐being;
hence there must be a future reconciliation of the two in the
well‐being or reward of virtue. To all of which it might be
answered, first, that there is no virtue so perfect as to merit
reward; and secondly, that virtue is its _own_ reward, and so _is_
well‐being.
(_d_) The historical argument.—The popular belief of all nations and ages
shows that the idea of immortality is natural to the human mind. It is not
sufficient to say that this indicates only such desire for continued
earthly existence as is necessary to self‐preservation; for multitudes
expect a life beyond death without desiring it, and multitudes desire a
heavenly life without caring for the earthly. This testimony of man’s
nature to immortality may be regarded as the testimony of the God who made
the nature.
Testimonies to this popular belief are given in Bartlett, Life and
Death Eternal, preface: The arrow‐heads and earthen vessels laid
by the side of the dead Indian; the silver obolus put in the mouth
of the dead Greek to pay Charon’s passage money; the furnishing of
the Egyptian corpse with the Book of the Dead, the papyrus‐roll
containing the prayer he is to offer and the chart of his journey
through the unseen world. The Gauls did not hesitate to lend
money, on the sole condition that he to whom they lent it would
return it to them in the other life,—so sure were they that they
should get it again (Valerius Maximus, quoted in Boissier, La
Religion Romaine, 1:264). The Laplanders bury flint and tinder
with the dead, to furnish light for the dark journey. The Norsemen
buried the horse and armor for the dead hero’s triumphant ride.
The Chinese scatter paper images of sedan porters over the grave,
to help along in the sombre pilgrimage. The Greenlanders bury with
the child a dog to guide him (George Dana Boardman, Sermon on
Immortality).
Savage, Life after Death, 1‐18—“Candles at the head of the casket
are the modern representatives of the primitive man’s fire which
was to light the way of the soul on its dark journey.... Ulysses
talks in the underworld with the shade of Hercules though the real
Hercules, a demigod, had been transferred to Olympus, and was
there living in companionship with the gods.... The Brahman
desired to escape being reborn. Socrates: ‘To die and be released
is better for me.’ Here I am walking on a plank. It reaches out
into the fog, and I have got to keep walking. I can see only ten
feet ahead of me. I know that pretty soon I must walk over the end
of that plank,—I haven’t the slightest idea into what, and I don’t
believe anybody else knows. And I don’t like it.” Matthew Arnold:
“Is there no other life? Pitch this one high.” But without
positive revelation most men will say: “_Let us eat and drink, for
to‐morrow we die_” (_1 Cor. 15:32_).
“By passionately loving life, we make Loved life unlovely, hugging
her to death.” Theodore Parker: “The intuition of mortality is
written in the heart of man by a Hand that writes no
falsehoods.... There is evidence of a summer yet to be, in the
buds which lie folded through our northern winter—efflorescences
in human nature unaccountable if the end of man is in the grave.”
But it may be replied that many universal popular impressions have
proved false, such as belief in ghosts, and in the moving of the
sun round the earth. While the mass of men have believed in
immortality, some of the wisest have been doubters. Cyrus said: “I
cannot imagine that the soul lives only while it remains in this
mortal body.” But the dying words of Socrates were: “We part; I am
going to die, and you to live; which of us goes the better way is
known to God alone.” Cicero declared: “Upon this subject I
entertain no more than conjectures;” and said that, when he was
reading Plato’s argument for immortality, he seemed to himself
convinced, but when he laid down the book he found that all his
doubts returned. Farrar, Darkness and Dawn, 134—“Though Cicero
wrote his Tusculan Disputations to prove the doctrine of
immortality, he spoke of that doctrine in his letters and speeches
as a mere pleasing speculation, which might be discussed with
interest, but which no one practically held.”
Aristotle, Nic. Ethics, 3:9, calls death “the most to be feared of
all things ... for it appears to be the end of everything; and for
the deceased there appears to be no longer either any good or any
evil.” Æschylus: “Of one once dead there is no resurrection.”
Catullus: “When once our brief day has set, we must sleep one
everlasting night.” Tacitus: “If there is a place for the spirits
of the pious; if, as the wise suppose, great souls do not become
extinct with their bodies.” “In that _if_,” says Uhlhorn, “lies
the whole torturing uncertainty of heathenism.” Seneca, Ep.
liv.—“Mors est non esse”—“Death is not to be”; Troades, V,
393—“Post mortem nihil est, ipsaque mors nihil”—“There is nothing
after death, and death itself is nothing.” Marcus Aurelius: “What
springs from earth dissolves to earth again, and heavenborn things
fly to their native seat.” The Emperor Hadrian to his soul:
“Animula, vagula, blandula, Hospes comesque corporis, Quæ nunc
abibis in loca? Pallidula, rigida, nudula.” Classic writers might
have said of the soul at death: “We know not where is that
Promethean torch That can its light relume.”
Chadwick, 184—“With the growth of all that is best in man of
intelligence and affection, there goes the development of the hope
of an immortal life. If the hope thus developed is not a valid
one, then we have a radical contradiction in our moral nature. The
survival of the fittest points in the same direction.” Andrew
Marvell (1621‐1678)—“At my back I always hear Time’s winged
chariot hurrying near; And yonder all before us lie Deserts of
vast Eternity.” Goethe in his last days came to be a profound
believer in immortality. “You ask me what are my grounds for this
belief? The weightiest is this, that we cannot do without it.”
Huxley wrote in a letter to Morley: “It is a curious thing that I
find my dislike to the thought of extinction increasing as I get
older and nearer the goal. It flashes across me at all sorts of
time that in 1900 I shall probably know no more of what is going
on than I did in 1800. I had sooner be in hell, a great deal,—at
any rate in one of the upper circles, where climate and the
company are not too trying.”
The book of Job shows how impossible it is for man to work out the
problem of personal immortality from the point of view of merely
natural religion. Shakespeare, in Measure for Measure, represents
Claudio as saying to his sister Isabella: “Aye, but to die, and go
we know not where; To lie in cold obstruction and to rot; This
sensible warm motion to become A kneaded clod.” Strauss,
Glaubenslehre, 2:739—“The other world is in all men the one enemy,
in its aspect of a future world, however, the last enemy, which
speculative criticism has to fight, and if possible to overcome.”
Omar Khayyám, Rubáiyát, Stanzas 28‐35—“I came like Water, and like
Wind I go.... Up from Earth’s Centre through the seventh gate I
rose, and on the throne of Saturn sate, And many a knot unravelled
by the Road, But not the master‐knot of human fate. There was the
Door to which I found no Key; There was the Veil through which I
might not see: Some little talk awhile of _Me_ and _Thee_ There
was,—And then no more of _Thee_ and _Me_. Earth could not answer,
nor the Seas that mourn, In flowing purple, of their Lord forlorn;
Nor rolling Heaven, with all his signs revealed, And hidden by the
sleeve of Night and Morn. Then of the _Thee in Me_, who works
behind The veil, I lifted up my hands to find A Lamp, amid the
darkness; and I heard As from without—‘The Me within Thee blind.’
Then to the lip of this poor earthen Urn I leaned, the secret of
my life to learn; And Lip to Lip it murmur’d—‘While you live,
Drink!—for, once dead, you never shall return!’ ” So “The Phantom
Caravan has reached The Nothing it set out from.” It is a
demonstration of the hopelessness and blindness and sensuality of
man, when left without the revelation of God and of the life to
come.
The most that can be claimed for this fourth argument from popular
belief is that it indicates a general appentency for continued
existence after death, and that the idea is congruous with our
nature. W. E. Forster said to Harriet Martineau that he would
rather be damned than annihilated; see F. P. Cobbe, Peak of
Darien, 44. But it may be replied that there is reason enough for
this desire for life in the fact that it ensures the earthly
existence of the race, which might commit universal suicide
without it. There is reason enough in the present life for its
existence, and we are not necessitated to infer a future life
therefrom. This objection cannot be fully answered from reason
alone. But if we take our argument in connection with the
Scriptural revelation concerning God’s making of man in his image,
we may regard the testimony of man’s nature as the testimony of
the God who made it.
We conclude our statement of these rational proofs with the acknowledgment
that they rest upon the presupposition that there exists a God of truth,
wisdom, justice, and love, who has made man in his image, and who desires
to commune with his creatures. We acknowledge, moreover, that these proofs
give us, not an absolute demonstration, but only a balance of probability,
in favor of man’s immortality. We turn therefore to Scripture for the
clear revelation of a fact of which reason furnishes us little more than a
presumption.
Everett, Essays, 76, 77—“In his Träume eines Geistersehers, Kant
foreshadows the Method of his Kritik. He gives us a scheme of
disembodied spirits, and calls it a bit of mystic (_geheimen_)
philosophy; then the opposite view, which he calls a bit of vulgar
(_gemeimen_) philosophy. Then he says the scales of the
understanding are not quite impartial, and the one that has the
inscription ‘Hope for the future’ has a mechanical advantage. He
says he cannot rid himself of this unfairness. He suffers feeling
to determine the result. This is intellectual agnosticism
supplemented by religious faith.” The following lines have been
engraved upon the tomb of Professor Huxley: “And if there be no
meeting past the grave, If all is darkness, silence, yet ’tis
rest. Be not afraid, ye waiting hearts that weep, For God still
giveth his beloved sleep, And if an endless sleep he wills, so
best.” Contrast this consolation with: “_Let not your heart be
troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s
house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you.
I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place
for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself, that
where I am, there ye may be also_” (_John 14:1‐3_).
Dorner: “There is no rational evidence which compels belief in
immortality. Immortality has its pledge in God’s making man in his
image, and in God’s will of love for communion with men.”
Luthardt, Compendium, 289—“The truth in these proofs from reason
is the idea of human personality and its relation to God. Belief
in God is the universal presupposition and foundation of the
universal belief in immortality.” When Strauss declared that this
belief in immortality is the last enemy which is to be destroyed,
he forgot that belief in God is more ineradicable still. Frances
Power Cobbe, Life, 92—“The doctrine of immortality is to me the
indispensable corollary of that of the goodness of God.”
Hadley, Essays, Philological and Critical, 392‐397—“The claim of
immortality may be based on one or the other of two assumptions:
(1) The same organism will be reproduced hereafter, and the same
functions, or part of them, again manifested in connection with
it, and accompanied with consciousness of continued identity; or,
(2) The same functions may be exercised and accompanied with
consciousness of identity, though not connected with the same
organism as before; may in fact go on without interruption,
without being even suspended by death, though no longer manifested
to us.” The conclusion is: “The light of nature, when all directed
to this question, does furnish a presumption in favor of
immortality, but not so strong a presumption as to exclude great
and reasonable doubts upon the subject.”
For an excellent synopsis of arguments and objections, see Hase,
Hutterus Redivivus, 276. See also Bowen, Metaph. and Ethics,
417‐441; A. M. Fairbairn, on Idea of Immortality, in Studies in
Philos. of Religion and of History; Wordsworth, Intimations of
Immortality; Tennyson, Two Voices; Alger, Critical History of
Doctrine of Future Life, with Appendix by Ezra Abbott, containing
a Catalogue of Works relating to the Nature, Origin, and Destiny
of the Soul; Ingersoll Lectures on Immortality, by George A.
Gordon, Josiah Royce, William James, Dr. Osler, John Fiske, B. I.
Wheeler, Hyslop, Münsterberg, Crothars.
2. Upon scriptural grounds.
(_a_) The account of man’s creation, and the subsequent allusions to it in
Scripture, show that, while the body was made corruptible and subject to
death, the soul was made in the image of God, incorruptible and immortal.
_Gen. 1:26, 27_—“_Let us make man in our image_”; _2:7_—“_And
Jehovah God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed
into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living
soul_”—here, as was shown in our treatment of Man’s Original
State, page 523, it is not the divine image, but the body, that is
formed of dust; and into this body the soul that possesses the
divine image is breathed. In the Hebrew records, the animating
soul is everywhere distinguished from the earthly body. _Gen.
3:22, 23_—“_Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good
and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of
the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: therefore Jehovah
God sent him forth from the garden of Eden_”—man had immortality
of soul, and now, lest to this he add immortality of body, he is
expelled from the tree of life. _Eccl. 12:7_—“_the dust returneth
to the earth as it was, and the spirit returneth unto God who gave
it_”; _Zech. 12:1_—“_Jehovah, who stretcheth forth the heavens,
and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of
man within him._”
_Mat. 10:28_—“_And be not afraid of them that kill the body, but
are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him who is able to
destroy both soul and body in hell_”; _Acts 7:59_—“_And they
stoned Stephen, calling upon the Lord, and saying, Lord Jesus,
receive my spirit_”: _2 Cor. 12:2_—“_I know a man in Christ,
fourteen years ago (whether in the body, I know not; or whether
out of the body, I know not; God knoweth), such a one caught up
even to the third heaven_”; _1 Cor. 15:45, 46_—“_The first man
Adam became a living soul. The last Adam became a life‐giving
spirit. Howbeit that is not first which is spiritual, but that
which is natural; then that which is spiritual_”—the first Adam
was made a being whose body was psychical and mortal—a body of
flesh and blood, that could not inherit the kingdom of God. So
Paul says the spiritual is not first, but the psychical; but there
is no intimation that the soul also was created mortal, and needed
external appliances, like the tree of life, before it could enter
upon immortality.
But it may be asked: Is not all this, in _1 Cor. 15_, spoken of
the regenerate—those to whom a new principle of life has been
communicated? We answer, yes; but that does not prevent us from
learning from the passage the natural immortality of the soul; for
in regeneration the essence is not changed, no new substance is
imparted, no new faculty or constitutive element is added, and no
new principle of holiness is infused. The truth is simply that the
spirit is morally readjusted. For substance of the above remarks,
see Hovey, State of Impenitent Dead, 1‐27.
Savage, Life after Death, 46, 53—“The word translated ‘soul’, in
_Gen. 2:7_, is the same word which in other parts of the O. T. is
used to denote the life‐principle of animals. It does not follow
that soul implies immortality, for then all animals would be
immortal.... The firmament of the Hebrews was the cover of a
dinner‐platter, solid, but with little windows to let the rain
through. Above this firmament was heaven where God and angels
abode, but no people went there. All went below. But growing moral
sense held that the good could not be imprisoned in Hades. So came
the idea of resurrection.... If a _force_, a universe with God
left out, can do all that has been done, I do not see why it
cannot also continue my existence through what is called death.”
Dr. H. Heath Bawden: “It is only the creature that is born that
will die. Monera and Amœbæ are immortal, as Weismann tells us.
They do not die, because they never are born. The death of the
individual as a somatic individual is for the sake of the larger
future life of the individual in its germinal immortality. So we
live ourselves spiritually into our children, as well as
physically. An organism is nothing but a centre or focus through
which the world surges. What matter if the irrelevant somatic
portion is lost in what we call death! The only immortality
possible is the immortality of function. My body has changed
completely since I was a boy, but I have become a larger self
thereby. Birth and death simply mark steps or stages in the growth
of such an individual, which in its very nature does not exclude
but rather includes within it the lives of all other individuals.
The individual is more than a passive member, he is an active
organ of a biological whole. The laws of his life are the social
organism functioning in one of its organs. He lives and moves and
has his being in the great spirit of the whole, which comes to a
focus or flowers out in his conscious life.”
(_b_) The account of the curse in Genesis, and the subsequent allusions to
it in Scripture, show that, while the death then incurred includes the
dissolution of the body, it does not include cessation of being on the
part of the soul, but only designates that state of the soul which is the
opposite of true life, _viz._, a state of banishment from God, of
unholiness, and of misery.
_Gen. 2:17_—“_in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt
surely die_”; _cf._ _3:8_—“_the man and his wife hid themselves
from the presence of Jehovah God_”; _16‐19_—the curse of pain and
toil: _22‐24_—banishment from the garden of Eden and from the tree
of life. _Mat. 8:22_—“_Follow me; and leave the dead to bury their
own dead_”; _25:41, 46_—“_Depart from me, ye cursed, into the
eternal fire.... These shall go away into eternal punishment_”;
_Luke 15:32_—“_this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and
was lost, and is found_”; _John 5:24_—“_He that heareth my word,
and believeth him that sent me, hath eternal life, and cometh not
into judgment, but hath passed out of death into life_”; _6:47,
53, 63_—“_He that believeth hath eternal life.... Except ye eat
the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye have not life
in yourselves.... the words that I have spoken unto you are
spirit, and are life_”: _8:51_—“_If a man keep my word, he shall
never see death._”
_Rom. 5:21_—“_that, as sin reigned in death, even so might grace
reign through righteousness unto eternal life_”; _8:13_—“_if ye
live after the flesh, ye must die; but if by the Spirit ye put to
death the deeds of the body, ye shall live_”; _Eph. 2:1_—“_dead
through your trespasses and sins_”; _5:14_—“_Awake, thou that
sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall shine upon
thee_”; _James 5:20_—“_he who converteth a sinner from the error
of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall cover a
multitude of sins_”; _1 John 3:14_—“_We know that we have passed
out of death into life, because we love the brethren_”; _Rev.
3:1_—“_I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest,
and thou art dead._”
We are to interpret O. T. terms by the N. T. meaning put into
them. We are to interpret the Hebrew by the Greek, not the Greek
by the Hebrew. It never would do to interpret our missionaries’
use of the Chinese words for “God”, “spirit”, “holiness”, by the
use of those words among the Chinese before the missionaries came.
By the later usage of the N. T., the Holy Spirit shows us what he
meant by the usage of the O. T.
(_c_) The Scriptural expressions, held by annihilationists to imply
cessation of being on the part of the wicked, are used not only in
connections where they cannot bear this meaning (Esther 4:16), but in
connections where they imply the opposite.
_Esther 4:16_—“_if I perish, I perish_”; _Gen. 6:11_—“_And the
earth was corrupt before God_”—here, in the LXX, the word ἐφθάρη,
translated “_was corrupt_,” is the same word which in other places
is interpreted by annihilationists as meaning extinction of being.
In _Ps. 119:176_, “_I have gone astray like a lost sheep_” cannot
mean “I have gone astray like an annihilated sheep.” _Is.
49:17_—“_thy destroyers_ [annihilators?] _and they that made thee
waste shall go forth from thee_”; _57:1, 2_—“_The righteous
perisheth_ [is annihilated?] _and no man layeth it to heart; and
merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous
is taken away from the evil to come. He entereth into peace; they
rest in their beds, each one that walketh in his uprightness_”;
_Dan. 9:26_—“_And after the three score and two weeks shall the
anointed one be cut off_ [annihilated?].”
_Mat. 10:6, 39, 42_—“_the lost sheep of the house of Israel ... he
that loseth his life for my sake shall find it ... he shall in no
wise lose his reward_”—in these verses we cannot substitute
“annihilate” for “_lose_”; _Acts 13:41_—“_Behold, ye despisers,
and wonder, and perish_”; _cf._ _Mat. 6:16_—“_for they disfigure
their faces_”—where the same word ἀφανίζω is used. _1 Cor.
3:17_—“_If any man destroyeth_ [annihilates?] _the temple of God,
him shall God destroy_”; _2 Cor. 7:2_—“_we corrupted no
man_”—where the same word φθείρω is used. _2 Thess. 1:9_—“_who
shall suffer punishment, even eternal destruction from the face of
the Lord and from the glory of his might_” = the wicked shall be
driven out from the presence of Christ. Destruction is not
annihilation. “_Destruction from_” = separation; (_per contra_,
see Prof. W. A. Stevens, Com. _in loco_: “_from_” = the source
from which the “_destruction_” proceeds). “A ship engulfed in
quicksands is destroyed; a temple broken down and deserted is
destroyed”; see Lillie, Com. _in loco_. _2 Pet. 3:7_—“_day of
judgment and destruction of ungodly men_”—here the word
“_destruction_” (ἀπωλείας) is the same with that used of the end
of the present order of things, and translated “_perished_”
(ἀπώλετο) in _verse 6_. “We cannot accordingly infer from it that
the ungodly will cease to exist, but only that there will be a
great and penal change in their condition” (Plumptre, Com. _in
loco_).
(_d_) The passages held to prove the annihilation of the wicked at death
cannot have this meaning, since the Scriptures foretell a resurrection of
the unjust as well as of the just; and a second death, or a misery of the
reunited soul and body, in the case of the wicked.
_Acts 24:15_—“_there shall be a resurrection both of the just and
unjust_”; _Rev. 2:11_—“_He that overcometh shall not be hurt of
the second death_”; _20:14, 15_—“_And death and Hades were cast
into the lake of fire. This is the second death, even the lake of
fire. And if any was not found written in the book of life, he was
cast into the lake of fire_”; _21:8_—“_their part shall be in the
lake that burneth with fire and brimstone; which is the second
death._” The “_second death_” is the first death intensified.
Having one’s “_part in the lake of fire_” is not annihilation.
In a similar manner the word “_life_” is to be interpreted not as
meaning continuance of being, but as meaning perfection of being.
As death is the loss not of life, but of all that makes life
desirable, so life is the possession of the highest good. _1 Tim.
5:6_—“_She that giveth herself to pleasure is dead while she
liveth_”—here the death is spiritual death, and it is implied that
true life is spiritual life. _John 10:10_—“_I came that they may
have life, and may have it abundantly_”—implies that “_life_” _is
not_: 1. mere existence, for they had this before Christ came; nor
2. mere motion, as squirrels go in a wheel, without making
progress; nor 3. mere possessions, “_for a man’s life consisteth
not in the abundance of things which he possesseth_” (_Luke
12:15_). But life _is_: 1. right relation of our powers, or
holiness; 2. right use of our powers, or love; 3. right number of
our powers, or completeness; 4. right intensity of our powers, or
energy of will; 5. right environment of our powers, or society; 6.
right source of our powers, or God.
(_e_) The words used in Scripture to denote the place of departed spirits
have in them no implication of annihilation, and the allusions to the
condition of the departed show that death, to the writers of the Old and
the New Testaments, although it was the termination of man’s earthly
existence, was not an extinction of his being or his consciousness.
On שאול Sheol, Gesenius, Lexicon, 10th ed., says that, though שאול
is commonly explained as infinitive of שאל, to demand, it is
undoubtedly allied to שעל (root של), to be sunk, and = “sinking,”
“depth,” or “the sunken, deep, place.” Ἁιδης, Hades, = not “hell,”
but the “unseen world,” conceived by the Greeks as a shadowy, but
not as an unconscious, state of being. Genung, Epic of the Inner
Life, on _Job 7:9_—“Sheol, the Hebrew word designating the unseen
abode of the dead; a neutral word, presupposing neither misery nor
happiness, and not infrequently used much as we use the word ‘the
grave’, to denote the final undefined resting‐place of all.”
_Gen. 25:8, 9_—Abraham “_was gathered to his people. And Isaac and
Ishmael his sons buried him in the cave of Machpelah._” “Yet
Abraham’s father was buried in Haran, and his more remote
ancestors in Ur of the Chaldees. So Joshua’s generation is said to
be ‘_gathered to their fathers_’ though the generation that
preceded them perished in the wilderness, and previous generations
died in Egypt” (W. H. Green, in S. S. Times). So of Isaac in _Gen.
35:29_, and of Jacob in _19:29, 33_,—all of whom were gathered to
their fathers before they were buried. _Num. 20:24_—“_Aaron shall
be gathered unto his people_”—here it is very plain that being
“_gathered unto his people_” was something different from burial.
_Deut. 10:6_—“_There Aaron died, and there he was buried._” _Job
3:13, 18_—“_For now should I have lain down and been quiet; I
should have slept; then had I been at rest.... There the prisoners
are at ease together; They hear not the voice of the taskmaster_”;
_7:9_—“_As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away, So he that
goeth down to Sheol shall come up no more_”; _14:22_—“_But his
flesh upon him hath pain, And his soul within him mourneth._”
_Ez. 32:21_—“_The strong among the mighty shall speak to him out
of the midst of Sheol_”; _Luke 16:23_—“_And in Hades he lifted up
his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and
Lazarus in his bosom_”; _23:43_—“_To‐day shalt thou be with me in
Paradise_”; _cf._ _1 Sam. 28:19_—Samuel said to Saul in the cave
of Endor: “_to‐morrow shalt thou and thy sons be with
me_”—evidently not in an unconscious state. Many of these passages
intimate a continuity of consciousness after death. Though Sheol
is unknown to man, it is naked and open to God (_Job 26:6_); he
can find men there to redeem them from thence (_Ps. 49:15_)—proof
that death is not annihilation. See Girdlestone, O. T. Synonyms,
447.
(_f_) The terms and phrases which have been held to declare absolute
cessation of existence at death are frequently metaphorical, and an
examination of them in connection with the context and with other
Scriptures is sufficient to show the untenableness of the literal
interpretation put upon them by the annihilationists, and to prove that
the language is merely the language of appearance.
Death is often designated as a “_sleeping_” or a “_falling
asleep_”; see _John 11:11, 14_—“_Our friend Lazarus is fallen
asleep; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep.... Then Jesus
therefore said unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead._” Here the
language of appearance is used; yet this language could not have
been used, if the soul had not been conceived of as alive, though
sundered from the body; see Meyer on _1 Cor. 1:18_. So the
language of appearance is used in _Eccl. 9:10_—“_there is no work,
nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in Sheol whither thou
goest_”—and in _Ps. 146:4_—“_His breath goeth forth; he returneth
to his earth; In that very day his thoughts perish._”
See Mozley, Essays, 2:171—“These passages often describe the
phenomena of death as it presents itself to our eyes, and so do
not enter into the reality which takes place beneath it.”
Bartlett, Life and Death Eternal, 189‐358—“Because the same Hebrew
word is used for ‘spirit’ and ‘breath,’ shall we say that the
spirit is only breath? ‘Heart’ in English might in like manner be
made to mean only the material organ; and David’s heart, panting,
thirsting, melting within him, would have to be interpreted
literally. So a man may be ‘eaten up with avarice,’ while yet his
being is not only not extinct, but is in a state of frightful
activity.”
(_g_) The Jewish belief in a conscious existence after death is proof that
the theory of annihilation rests upon a misinterpretation of Scripture.
That such a belief in the immortality of the soul existed among the Jews
is abundantly evident: from the knowledge of a future state possessed by
the Egyptians (Acts 7:22); from the accounts of the translation of Enoch
and of Elijah (Gen. 5:24; _cf._ Heb. 11:5; 2 K. 2:11); from the invocation
of the dead which was practised, although forbidden by the law (1 Sam.
28:7‐14; _cf._ Lev. 20:28; Deut. 18:10, 11); from allusions in the O. T.
to resurrection, future retribution, and life beyond the grave (Job
19:25‐27; Ps. 16:9‐11; Is. 26:19; Ez. 37:1‐14; Dan. 12:2, 3, 13); and from
distinct declarations of such faith by Philo and Josephus, as well as by
the writers of the N. T. (Mat. 22:31, 32; Acts 23:6; 26:6‐8; Heb.
11:13‐16).
The Egyptian coffin was called “the chest of the living.” The
Egyptians called their houses “hostelries,” while their tombs they
called their “eternal homes” (Butcher, Aspects of Greek Genius,
30). See the Book of the Dead, translated by Birch, in Bunsen’s
Egypt’s Place, 123‐333: The principal ideas of the first part of
the Book of the Dead are “living again after death, and being born
again as the sun,” which typified the Egyptian resurrection (138).
“The deceased lived again after death” (134). “The Osiris lives
after he dies, like the sun daily; for as the sun died and was
born yesterday, so the Osiris is born” (164). Yet the immortal
part, in its continued existence, was dependent for its
blessedness upon the preservation of the body; and for this reason
the body was embalmed. Immortality of the body is as important as
the passage of the soul to the upper regions. Growth or natural
reparation of the body is invoked as earnestly as the passage of
the soul. “There is not a limb of him without a god; Thoth is
vivifying his limbs” (197).
Maspero, Recueil de Travaux, gives the following readings from the
inner walls of pyramids twelve miles south of Cairo: “O Unas, thou
hast gone away dead, but living”; “Teti is the living dead”;
“Arise, O Teti, to die no more”; “O Pepi, thou diest no
more”;—these inscriptions show that to the Egyptians there was
life beyond death. “The life of Unas is duration; his period is
eternity”; “They render thee happy throughout all eternity”; “He
who has given thee life and eternity is Ra”;—here we see that the
life beyond death was eternal. “Rising at his pleasure, gathering
his members that are in the tomb, Unas goes forth”; “Unas has his
heart, his legs, his arms”; this asserts reunion with the body.
“Reunited to thy soul, thou takest thy place among the stars of
heaven”; “the soul is thine within thee”;—there was reunion with
the soul. “A god is born, it is Unas”; “O Ra, thy son comes to
thee, this Unas comes to thee”; “O Father of Unas, grant that he
may be included in the number of the perfect and wise gods”; here
it is taught that the reunited soul and body becomes a god and
dwells with the gods.
Howard Osgood: “Osiris, the son of gods, came to live on earth.
His life was a pattern for others. He was put to death by the god
of evil, but regained his body, lived again, and became, in the
other world, the judge of all men.” Tiele, Egyptian Religion,
280—“To become like god Osiris, a benefactor, a good being,
persecuted but justified, judged but pronounced innocent, was
looked upon as the ideal of every pious man, and as the condition
on which alone eternal life could be obtained, and as the means by
which it could be continued.” Ebers, Études Archéologiques,
21—“The texts in the pyramids show us that under the Pharaohs of
the 5th dynasty (before 2500 B. C.) the doctrine that the deceased
became god was not only extant, but was developed more thoroughly
and with far higher flight of imagination than we could expect
from the simple statements concerning the other world hitherto
known to us as from that early time.” Revillout, on Egyptian
Ethics, in Bib. Sac., July, 1890:304—“An almost absolute
sinlessness was for the Egyptian the condition of becoming another
Osiris and enjoying eternal happiness. Of the penitential side, so
highly developed in the ancient Babylonians and Hebrews, which
gave rise to so many admirable penitential psalms, we find only a
trace among the Egyptians. Sinlessness is the rule,—the deceased
vaunts himself as a hero of virtue.” See Uarda, by Ebers; Dr.
Howard Osgood, on Resurrection among the Egyptians, in Hebrew
Student, Feb. 1885. The Egyptians, however, recognized no
transmigration of souls; see Renouf, Hibbert Lectures, 181‐184.
It is morally impossible that Moses should not have known the
Egyptian doctrine of immortality: _Acts 7:22_—“_And Moses was
instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians._” That Moses did
not make the doctrine more prominent in his teachings, may be for
the reason that it was so connected with Egyptian superstitions
with regard to Osiris. Yet the Jews believed in immortality: _Gen.
5:24_—“_and Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took
him_”; _cf._ _Heb. 11:5_—“_By faith Enoch was translated that he
should not see death_”; _2 Kings 2:11_—“_Elijah went up by a
whirlwind into heaven_”; _1 Sam. 28:7‐14_—the invocation of Samuel
by the woman of Endor; _cf._ _Lev. 20:27_—“_A man also or a woman
that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be
put to death_”; _Deut. 18:10, 11_—“_There shall not be found with
thee ... a consulter with a familiar spirit, or a wizard, or a
necromancer._”
_Job 19:25‐27_—“_I know that my Redeemer liveth, And at last he
will stand up upon the earth: And after my skin, even this body,
is destroyed, Then without my flesh shall I see God; Whom I, even
I, shall see, on my side, And mine eyes shall behold, and not as a
stranger. My heart is consumed within me_”; _Ps.
16:9‐11_—“_Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth: My
flesh also shall dwell in safety. For thou wilt not leave my soul
to Sheol; Neither wilt thou suffer thy holy one to see corruption.
Thou wilt show me the path of life: In thy presence is fulness of
joy; In thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore_”; _Is.
26:19_—“_Thy dead shalt live; my dead bodies shall arise. Awake
and sing, ye that dwell in the dust; for thy dew is as the dew of
herbs, and the earth shall cast forth the dead_”; _Ez.
37:1‐14_—the valley of dry bones—“_I will open your graves, and
cause you to come up out of your graves, O my people_”—a prophecy
of restoration based upon the idea of immortality and
resurrection; _Dan. 12:2, 3, 13_—“_And many of them that sleep in
the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and
some to shame and everlasting contempt. And they that are wise
shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn
many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever.... But go
thou thy way till the end be: for thou shalt rest, and shalt stand
in thy lot, at the end of the days._”
Josephus, on the doctrine of the Pharisees, in Antiquities,
XVIII:1:3, and Wars of the Jews, II:8:10‐14—“Souls have an
immortal vigor. Under the earth are rewards and punishments. The
wicked are detained in an everlasting prison. The righteous shall
have power to revive and live again. Bodies are indeed
corruptible, but souls remain exempt from death forever. But the
doctrine of the Sadducees is that souls die with their bodies.”
_Mat. 22:31, 32_—“_But as touching the resurrection of the dead,
have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I
am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?
God is not the God of the dead, but of the living._”
Christ’s argument, in the passage last quoted, rests upon the two
implied assumptions: first, that love will never suffer the object
of its affection to die; beings who have ever been the objects of
God’s love will be so forever; secondly, that body and soul belong
normally together; if body and soul are temporarily separated,
they shall be united; Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are living, and
therefore they shall rise again. It was only an application of the
same principle, when Robert Hall gave up his early materialism as
he looked down into his father’s grave: he felt that this could
not be the end; _cf._ _Ps. 22:26_—“_Your heart shall live
forever._” _Acts 23:6_—“_I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees:
touching the hope and resurrection of the dead I am called in
question_”; _26:7, 8_—“_And concerning this hope I am accused by
the Jews, O king! Why is it judged incredible with you, if God
doth raise the dead?_” _Heb. 11:13‐16_—the present life was
reckoned as a pilgrimage; the patriarchs sought “_a better
country, that is, a heavenly_”; _cf._ _Gen. 47:9_. On Jesus’
argument for the resurrection, see A. H. Strong, Christ in
Creation, 406‐421.
The argument for immortality itself presupposes, not only the
existence of a God, but the existence of a truthful, wise, and
benevolent God. We might almost say that God and immortality must
be proved together,—like two pieces of a broken crock, when put
together there is proof of both. And yet logically it is only the
existence of God that is intuitively certain. Immortality is an
inference therefrom. Henry More: “But souls that of his own good
life partake He loves as his own self; dear as his eye They are to
him: he’ll never them forsake; When they shall die, then God
himself shall die; They live, they live in blest eternity.” God
could not let Christ die, and he cannot let us die. Southey: “They
sin who tell us love can die. With life all other passions fly;
All others are but vanity. In heaven ambition cannot dwell, Nor
avarice in the vaults of hell; They perish where they had their
birth; But love is indestructible.”
Emerson, Threnody on the death of his beloved and gifted child:
“What is excellent, As God lives, is permanent: Hearts are dust,
hearts’ loves remain; Heart’s love will meet thee again.”
Whittier, Snowbound, 200 _sq._—“Yet Love will dream, and Faith
will trust (Since He who knows our need is just), That somehow,
somewhere, meet we must. Alas for him who never sees The stars
shine through his cypress trees! Who hopeless lays his dead away,
Nor looks to see the breaking day Across his mournful marbles
play! Who hath not learned, in hours of faith, The truth to flesh
and sense unknown, That Life is ever lord of death, And Love can
never lose its own.” Robert Browning, Evelyn Hope: “For God above
Is great to grant as mighty to make, And creates the love to
reward the love; I claim you still for my own love’s sake! Delayed
it may be for more lives yet, Through worlds I shall traverse not
a few; Much is to learn and much to forget, Ere the time be come
for taking you.”
The river St. John in New Brunswick descends seventeen feet
between the city and the sea, and ships cannot overcome the
obstacle, but when the tide comes in, it turns the current the
other way and bears vessels on mightily to the city. So the laws
of nature bring death, but the tides of Christ’s life counteract
them, and bring life and immortality (Dr. J. W. A. Stewart).
Mozley, Lectures, 26‐59, and Essays, 2:169—“True religion among
the Jews had an evidence of immortality in its possession of God.
Paganism was hopeless in its loss of friends, because affection
never advanced beyond its earthly object, and therefore, in losing
it, lost all. But religious love, which loves the creature in the
Creator, has that on which to fall back, when its earthly object
is removed.”
(_h_) The most impressive and conclusive of all proofs of immortality,
however, is afforded in the resurrection of Jesus Christ,—a work
accomplished by his own power, and demonstrating that the spirit lived
after its separation from the body (John 2:19, 21; 10:17, 18). By coming
back from the tomb, he proves that death is not annihilation (2 Tim.
1:10).
_John 2:19, 21_—“_Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this
temple, and in three days I will raise it up.... But he spake of
the temple of his body_”; _10:17, 18_—“_Therefore doth the Father
love me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it again....
I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again_”;
_2 Tim. 1:10_—“_our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death, and
brought life and immortality to light through the gospel_”—that
is, immortality had been a truth dimly recognized, suspected,
longed for, before Christ came; but it was he who first brought it
out from obscurity and uncertainty into clear daylight and
convincing power. Christ’s resurrection, moreover, carries with it
the resurrection of his people: “We two are so joined, He’ll not
be in glory and leave me behind.”
Christ taught immortality: (1) By exhibiting himself the perfect
conception of a human life. Who could believe that Christ could
become forever extinct? (2) By actually coming back from beyond
the grave. There were many speculations about a trans‐Atlantic
continent before 1492, but these were of little worth compared
with the actual word which Columbus brought of a new world beyond
the sea. (3) By providing a way through which his own spiritual
life and victory may be ours; so that, though we pass through the
valley of the shadow of death, we may fear no evil. (4) By thus
gaining authority to teach us of the resurrection of the righteous
and of the wicked, as he actually does. Christ’s resurrection is
not only the best proof of immortality, but we have no certain
evidence of immortality without it. Hume held that the same logic
which proved immortality from reason alone, would also prove
preëxistence. “In reality,” he said, “it is the Gospel, and the
Gospel alone, that has brought immortality to light.” It was
truth, though possibly spoken in jest.
There was need of this revelation. The fear of death, even after
Christ has come, shows how hopeless humanity is by nature. Krupp,
the great German maker of cannon, would not have death mentioned
in his establishment. He ran away from his own dying relatives.
Yet he died. But to the Christian, death is an exodus, an
unmooring, a home‐coming. Here we are as ships on the stocks; at
death we are launched into our true element. Before Christ’s
resurrection, it was twilight; it is sunrise now. Balfour: “Death
is the fall of the curtain, not at the end of the piece, but at
the end of the act.” George Dana Boardman: “Christ is the
resurrection and the life. Being himself the Son of man—the
archetypal man, the representative of human nature, the head and
epitome of mankind—mankind ideally, potentially, virtually rose,
when the Son of man rose. He is the resurrection, because he is
the life. The body does not give life to itself, but life takes on
body and uses it.”
George Adam Smith, Yale Lectures: “Some of the Psalmists have only
a hope of corporate immortality. But this was found wanting. It
did not satisfy Israel. It cannot satisfy men to‐day. The O. T. is
of use in reminding us that the hope of immortality is a
secondary, subordinate, and dispensable element of religious
experience. Men had better begin and work for God’s sake, and not
for future reward. The O. T. development of immortality is of use
most of all because it deduces all immortality from God.”
Athanasius: “Man is, according to nature, mortal, as a being who
has been made of things that are perishable. But on account of his
likeness to God he can by piety ward off and escape from his
natural mortality and remain indestructible if he retain the
knowledge of God, or lose his incorruptibility if he lose his life
in God” (quoted in McConnell, Evolution of Immortality, viii,
46‐48). Justin Martyr, 1 Apol., 17, expects resurrection of both
just and unjust; but in Dial. Tryph., 5, he expressly denounces
and dismisses the Platonic doctrine that the soul is immortal.
Athenagoras and Tertullian hold to native immortality, and from it
argue to bodily resurrection. So Augustine. But Theophilus,
Irenæus, Clemens Alexandrinus, with Athanasius, counted it a pagan
error. For the annihilation theory, see Hudson, Debt and Grace,
and Christ our Life; also Dobney, Future Punishment. _Per contra_,
see Hovey, State of the Impenitent Dead, 1‐27, and Manual of
Theology and Ethics, 153‐168; Luthardt, Compendium, 289‐292;
Delitzsch, Bib. Psych., 397‐407; Herzog, Encyclop., art.: Tod;
Splittgerber, Schlaf und Tod; Estes, Christian Doctrine of the
Soul; Baptist Review, 1879:411‐439; Presb. Rev., Jan. 1882:203.
II. The Intermediate State.
The Scriptures affirm the conscious existence of both the righteous and
the wicked, after death, and prior to the resurrection. In the
intermediate state the soul is without a body, yet this state is for the
righteous a state of conscious joy, and for the wicked a state of
conscious suffering.
That the righteous do not receive the spiritual body at death, is plain
from 1 Thess. 4:16,17 and 1 Cor. 15:52, where an interval is intimated
between Paul’s time and the rising of those who slept. The rising was to
occur in the future, “at the last trump.” So the resurrection of the
wicked had not yet occurred in any single case (2 Tim. 2:18—it was an
error to say that the resurrection was “past already”); it was yet future
(John 5:28‐30—“the hour cometh”—ἔρχεται ὤρα, not καὶ νῦν ἐστίν—“now is,”
as in verse 25; Acts 24:15—“there shall be a resurrection”—ἀνάστασιν
μέλλειν ἔσεσθαι). Christ was the firstfruits (1 Cor. 15:20, 23). If the
saints had received the spiritual body at death, the patriarchs would have
been raised before Christ.
1. Of the righteous.
Of the righteous, it is declared:
(_a_) That the soul of the believer, at its separation from the body,
enters the presence of Christ.
_2 Cor. 5:1‐8_—“_if the earthly house of our tabernacle be
dissolved, we have a building from God, a house not made with
hands, eternal in the heavens. For verily in this we groan,
longing to be clothed upon with our habitation which is from
heaven: if so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked.
For indeed we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being
burdened; not for that we would be unclothed, but that we would be
clothed upon, that what is mortal may be swallowed up of life ...
willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be at home with
the Lord_”—Paul hopes to escape the violent separation of soul and
body—the being “_unclothed_”—by living till the coming of the
Lord, and then putting on the heavenly body, as it were, over the
present one (ἐπενδύσασθαι); yet whether he lived till Christ’s
coming or not, he knew that the soul, when it left the body, would
be at home with the Lord.
_Luke 23:43_—“_To‐day shalt thou be with me in Paradise_”; _John
14:3_—“_And if I go and prepare a place for you, I come again, and
will receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be
also_”; _2 Tim. 4:18_—“_The Lord will deliver me from every evil
work, and will save me unto_ [or, ‘_into_’] _his heavenly
kingdom_” = will save me and put me into his heavenly kingdom
(Ellicott), the characteristic of which is the visible presence of
the King with his subjects. It is our privilege to be with Christ
here and now. And nothing shall separate us from Christ and his
love, “_neither death, nor life ... nor things present, nor things
to come_” (_Rom. 8:38_); for he himself has said: “_Lo, I am with
you always, even unto the consummation of the age_” (_Mat.
28:20_).
(_b_) That the spirits of departed believers are with God.