altars, victims, lustrations, and kindred things."21 That these

comparisons are sometimes used by the writer analogically,

figuratively, imaginatively, for the sake of practical

illustration and impression, not literally as logical expressions

and proofs of a dogmatic theory of atonement, is made sufficiently

plain by the following quotations. "The bodies of those beasts

whose blood is brought into the holy place by the high priest for

sin are burned without the camp. Wherefore Jesus also, that he

might sanctify the people through his own blood, suffered without

the gate. Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp,

bearing his reproach." Every one will at once perceive that these

sentences are not critical statements of theological truths, but

are imaginative expressions of practical lessons, spiritual

exhortations. Again, we read, "It was necessary that the patterns

of the heavenly things should be purified with sacrificed animals,

but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than

these." Certainly it is only by an exercise of the imagination,

for spiritual impression, not for philosophical argument, that

heaven can be said to be defiled by the sins of men on earth so as

to need cleansing by the lustral blood of Christ. The writer also

appeals to his readers in these terms: "To do good and to

communicate forget not; for with such sacrifices God is well

pleased." The purely practical aim and rhetorical method with

which the sacrificial language is employed here are evident

enough. We believe it is used in the same way wherever it occurs

in the epistle.

The considerations which have convinced us, and which we think

ought to convince every unprejudiced mind, that the Calvinistic

scheme of a substitutional expiation for sin, a placation of

Divine wrath by the offering of Divine blood, was not in the mind

of the author, and does not inform his expressions when they are

rightly understood, may be briefly presented. First, the notion

that the suffering of Christ in itself ransomed lost souls, bought

the withheld grace and pardon of God for us, is confessedly

foreign and repulsive to the instinctive moral sense and to

natural reason, but is supposed to rest on the authority of

revelation. Secondly, that doctrine is nowhere specifically stated

in the epistle, but is assumed, or inferred, to explain language

which to a superficial look seems to imply it, perhaps even seems

to be inexplicable without it;22 but in reality such a view is

inconsistent with that language when it is accurately studied. For

example, notice the following passage: "When Christ cometh into

the world," he is represented as saying, "I come to do thy will, O

God." "By the which will," the writer continues, "we are

sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus." That is,

the death of Christ, involving his resurrection and ascension into

heaven, fulfils and exemplifies the gracious purpose of God, not

purchases for us an otherwise impossible benignity. The above

cited explicit declaration is irreconcilable

21 Opuscula: De Imaginibus Judaicis in Epist. ad Hebraos.

22 That these texts were not originally understood as implying any

vicarious efficacy in Christ's painful death, but as attributing a

typical power to his triumphant resurrection, his glorious return

from the world of the dead into heaven, appears very plainly in

the following instance, Theodoret, one of the earliest explanatory

writers on the New Testament, says, while expressly speaking of

Christ's death, the sufferings through which he was perfected,

"His resurrection certified a resurrection for us all." Comm. in

Epist. ad Heb. cap. 2, v. 10.

with the thought that Christ came into the world to die that he

might appease the flaming justice and anger of God, and by

vicarious agony buy the remission of human sins: it conveys the

idea, on the contrary, that God sent Christ to prove and

illustrate to men the free fulness of his forgiving love. Thirdly,

the idea, which we think was the idea of the author of the Epistle

to the Hebrews, that Christ, by his death, resurrection, and

ascent, demonstrated to the faith of men God's merciful removal of

the supposed outward penalty of sin, namely, the banishment of

souls after death to the under world, and led the way, as their

forerunner, into heaven, this idea, which is not shocking to the

moral sense nor plainly absurd to the moral reason, as the

Augustinian dogma is, not only yields a more sharply defined,

consistent, and satisfactory explanation of all the related

language of the epistle, but is also which cannot be said of the

other doctrine in harmony with the contemporary opinions of the

Hebrews, and would be the natural and almost inevitable

development from them and complement of them in the mind of a

Pharisee, who, convinced of the death and ascension of the sinless

Jesus, the appointed Messiah, had become a Christian.

In support of the last assertion, which is the only one that needs

further proof, we submit the following considerations. In the

first place, every one familiar with the eschatology of the

Hebrews knows that at the time of Christ the belief prevailed that

the sin of Adam was the cause of death among men. In the second

place, it is equally well known that they believed the destination

of souls upon leaving the body to be the under world. Therefore

does it not follow by all the necessities of logic? they believed

that sin was the cause of the descent of disembodied spirits to

the dreary lower realm. In the third place, it is notorious and

undoubted that the Jews of that age expected that, when the

Messiah should appear, the dead of their nation, or at least a

portion of them, would be raised from the under world and be

reclothed with bodies, and would reign with him for a period on

earth and then ascend to heaven. Now, what could be more natural

than that a person holding this creed, who should be brought to

believe that Jesus was the true Messiah and after his death had

risen from among the dead into heaven, should immediately conclude

that this was a pledge or illustration of the abrogation of the

gloomy penalty of sin, the deliverance of souls from the

subterranean prison, and their admission to the presence of God

beyond the sky? We deem this an impregnable position. Every

relevant text that we consider in its light additionally fortifies

it by the striking manner in which such a conception fits, fills,

and explains the words. To justify these interpretations, and to

sustain particular features of the doctrine which they express,

almost any amount of evidence may be summoned from the writings

both of the most authoritative and of the simplest Fathers of the

Church, beginning with Justin Martyr,23 philosopher of Neapolis,

at the close of the apostolic age, and ending with John Hobart,24

Bishop of New York, in the early part of the nineteenth century.

We refrain from adducing the throng of such authorities here,

because they will be more appropriately brought forward in future

chapters.

23 Dial. cum Tryph. cap. v. et cap. lxxx.24 State of the Departed.

The intelligent reader will observe that the essential point of

difference distinguishing our exposition of the fundamental

doctrine of the composition in review, on the one hand, from the

Calvinistic interpretation of it, and, on the other hand, from the

Unitarian explanation of it, is this. Calvinism says that Christ,

by his death, his vicarious pains, appeased the wrath of God,

satisfied the claims of justice, and purchased the salvation of

souls from an agonizing and endless hell. Unitarianism says that

Christ, by his teachings, spirit, life, and miracles, revealed the

character of the Father, set an example for man, gave certainty to

great truths, and exerted moral influences to regenerate men,

redeem them from sin, and fit them for the blessed kingdom of

immortality. We understand the writer of the Epistle to the

Hebrews really to say in subtraction from what the Calvinist, in

addition to what the Unitarian, says that Christ, by his

resurrection from the tyrannous realm of death, and ascent into

the unbarred heaven, demonstrated the fact that God, in his

sovereign grace, in his free and wondrous love, would forgive

mankind their sins, remove the ancient penalty of transgression,

no more dooming their disembodied spirits to the noiseless and

everlasting gloom of the under world, but admitting them to his

own presence, above the firmamental floor, where the beams of his

chambers are laid, and where he reigneth forever, covered with

light as with a garment.

CHAPTER III.

DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE IN THE APOCALYPSE.

BEFORE attempting to exhibit the doctrine of a future life

contained in the Apocalypse, we propose to give a brief account of

what is contained, relating to this subject, in the Epistle of

James, the Epistle of Jude, and the (so called) Second Epistle of

Peter.

The references made by James to the group of points included under

the general theme of the Future Life are so few and indirect, or

vague, that it is impossible to construct any thing like a

complete doctrine from them, save by somewhat arbitrary and

uncertain suppositions. His purpose in writing, evidently, was

practical exhortation, not dogmatic instruction. His epistle

contains no expository outline of a system; but it has allusions

and hints which plainly imply some partial views belonging to a

system, while the other parts of it are left obscure. He says that

"evil desire brings forth sin, and sin, when it is finished,

brings forth death." But whether he intended this text as a moral

metaphor to convey a spiritual meaning, or as a literal statement

of a physical fact, or as a comprehensive enunciation including

both these ideas, there is nothing in the context positively to

determine. He offers not the faintest clew to his conception of

the purpose of the death and resurrection of Christ. He uses the

word for the Jewish hell but once, and then, undeniably, in a

figurative sense, saying that a "curbless and defiling tongue is

set on fire of Gehenna." He appears to adopt the common notion of

his contemporary countrymen in regard to demoniacal existences,

when he declares that "the devils believe there is one God, and

tremble," and when he exclaims, "Resist the devil, and he will

flee from you." He insists on the necessity of a faith that

evinces itself in good works and in all the virtues, as the means

of acceptance with God. He compares life to a vanishing vapor,

denounces terribly the wicked and dissolute rich men who wanton in

crimes and oppress the poor. Then he calls on the suffering

brethren to be patient under their afflictions "until the coming

of the Lord;" to abstain from oaths, be fervent in prayer, and

establish their hearts, "for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh."

"Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned:

behold, the Judge standeth before the door." Here the return of

Christ, to finish his work, sit in judgment, accept some, and

reject others, is clearly implied. And if James held this element

of the general scheme of eschatology held by the other apostles as

shown in their epistles, it is altogether probable that he also

embraced the rest of that scheme. There are no means of definitely

ascertaining whether he did or did not; though, according to a

very learned and acute theologian, another fundamental part of

that general system of doctrine is to be found in the last verse

of the epistle, where James says that "he who converts a sinner

from the error of his ways shall save a soul from death and hide a

multitude of sins." Bretschneider thinks that saving a soul from

death here means rescuing it from a descent into the under world,

the word death being often used in the New Testament as by the

Rabbins to denote the subterranean abode of the dead.1 This

1 Bretschneider, Religiose Glaubenslehre, sect. 59.

interpretation may seem forced to an unlearned reader, who

examines the text for personal profit, but will not seem at all

improbable to one who, to learn its historic meaning, reads the

text in the lighted foreground of a mind over whose background

lies a fitly arranged knowledge of all the materials requisite for

an adequate criticism. For such a man was Bretschneider himself.

The eschatological implications and references in the Epistle of

Jude are of pretty much the same character and extent as those

which we have just considered. A thorough study and analysis of

this brief document will show that it may be fairly divided into

three heads and be regarded as having three objects. First, the

writer exhorts his readers "to contend earnestly for the faith

once delivered to the saints," "to remember the words of Christ's

apostles," "to keep themselves in the love of God, looking for

eternal life." He desires to stir them up to diligence in efforts

to preserve their doctrinal purity and their personal virtue.

Secondly, he warns them of the fearful danger of depravity, pride,

and lasciviousness. This warning he enforces by several examples

of the terrible judgments of God on the rebellious and wicked in

other times. Among these instances is the case of the Cities of

the Plain, eternally destroyed by a storm of fire for their

uncleanness; also the example of the fallen angels, "who kept not

their first estate, but left their proper habitation, and are

reserved in everlasting chains and darkness unto the judgment of

the great day." The writer here adopts the doctrine of fallen

angels, and the connected views, as then commonly received among

the Jews. This doctrine is not of Christian origin, but was drawn

from Persian and other Oriental sources, as is abundantly shown,

with details, in almost every history of Jewish opinions, in

almost every Biblical commentary.2 In this connection Jude cites a

legend from an apocryphal book, called the "Ascension of Moses,"

of which Origen gives an account.3 The substance of the tradition

is, that, at the decease of Moses, Michael and Satan contended

whether the body should be given over to death or be taken up to

heaven. The appositeness of this allusion is, that, while in this

strife the archangel dared not rail against Satan, yet the wicked

men whom Jude is denouncing do not hesitate to blaspheme the

angels and to speak evil of the things which they know not. "Woe

unto such ungodly men: gluttonous spots, dewless clouds, fruitless

trees plucked up and twice dead, they are ordained to

condemnation." Thirdly, the epistle announces the second coming of

Christ, in the last time, to establish his tribunal. The Prophecy

of Enoch an apocryphal book, recovered during the present century

is quoted as saying, "Behold, the Lord cometh, with ten thousand

of his saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convict the

ungodly of their ungodly deeds."4 Jude, then, anticipated the

return of the Lord, at "the judgment of the great day," to judge

the world; considered the under world, or abode of the dead, not

as a region of fire, but a place of imprisoning gloom, wherein "to

defiled and blaspheming dreamers is reserved the blackness of

darkness forever;"

2 E. g. Stuart's Dissertation on the Angelology of the Scriptures,

published in vol. i. of the Bibliotheca Sacra.

3 De Principiis, lib. iii. cap 2. See, also, in Michaelis's

Introduction to the New Testament, sect. 4 of the chapter on Jude.

4 Book of Enoch, translated by Dr. R. Laurence, cap. ii.

thought it imminently necessary for men to be diligent in striving

to secure their salvation, because "all sensual mockers, not

having the spirit, but walking after their own ungodly lusts,"

would be lost. He probably expected that, when all free

contingencies were past and Christ had pronounced sentence, the

condemned would be doomed eternally into the black abyss, and the

accepted would rise into the immortal glory of heaven. He closes

his letter with these significant words, which plainly imply much

of what we have just been setting forth: "Everlasting honor and

power, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be unto God, who is able to

keep you from falling and to present you faultless before the face

of his glory with exceeding joy."5

The first chapter of the so called Second Epistle of Peter is not

occupied with theological propositions, but with historical,

ethical, and practical statements and exhortations. These are,

indeed, of such a character, and so expressed, that they clearly

presuppose certain opinions in the mind of the writer. First, he

evidently believed that a merciful and holy message had been sent

from God to men by Jesus Christ, whereby are given unto us

exceeding great and precious promises." The substance of these

promises was "a call to escape the corruption of the world, and

enter into glory and be partakers of the Divine nature." By

partaking of the Divine nature, we understand the writer to mean

entering the Divine abode and condition, ascending into the safe

and eternal joy of the celestial prerogatives. That the author

here denotes heaven by the term glory, as the other New Testament

writers frequently do, appears distinctly from the seventeenth and

eighteenth verses of the chapter, where, referring to the incident

at the baptism of Jesus, he declares, "There came a voice from the

excellent glory, saying, 'This is my beloved Son;' and this voice,

which came from heaven, we heard." Secondly, our author regarded

this glorious promise as contingent on the fulfilment of certain

conditions. It was to be realized by means of "faith, courage,

knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, kindness, and love."

"He that hath these things shall never fall," "but an entrance

shall be ministered unto him abundantly into the everlasting

kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ." The writer

furnishes us no clew to his idea of the particular part performed

by Christ in our salvation. He says not a word concerning the

sufferings or death of the Savior; and the extremely scanty and

indefinite allusions made to the relation in which Christ was

supposed to stand between God and men, and the redemption and

reconciliation of men with God, do not enable us to draw any

dogmatic conclusions. He speaks of "false teachers, who shall

bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought

them." But whether by this last phrase he means to imply a ransom

of imprisoned souls from the under world by Christ's descent

thither and victory over its powers, or a purchased exemption of

sinners from their merited doom by the vicarious sufferings of

Christ's death, or a practical regenerative redemption of

disciples from their sins by the moral influences of his mission,

his teachings, example, and character, there is nothing in the

epistle clearly to decide; though, forming our judgment by the aid

of other sources of information, we should conclude in favor of

the first of these three conceptions as most probably expressing

the writer's thought.

5 Griesbuch's reading of the 25th verse of Jude.

The second chapter of the epistle is almost an exact parallel with

the Epistle of Jude: in many verses it is the same, word for word.

It threatens "unclean, self willed, unjust, and blaspheming men,"

that they shall "be reserved unto the day of judgment, to be

punished." It warns such persons by citing the example of the

rebellious "angels, who were thrust down into Tartarus, and

fastened in chains of darkness until the judgment." It speaks of

"cursed children, to whom is reserved the mist of darkness

forever." Herein, plainly enough, is betrayed the common notion of

the Jews of that time, the conception of a dismal under world,

containing the evil angels of the Persian theology, and where the

wicked were to be remanded after judgment and eternally

imprisoned.

The third and last chapter is taken up with the doctrine of the

second coming of Christ. "Be mindful of the words of the prophets

and apostles, knowing this first, that in the last days there

shall be scoffers, who will say, 'Where is the promise of his

coming? for since the fathers fell asleep all things continue as

from the beginning.'" The writer meets this skeptical assertion

with denial, and points to the Deluge, "whereby the world that

then was, being overflowed with water, perished." His argument is,

the world was thus destroyed once, therefore it may be destroyed

again. He then goes on to assert positively relying for authority

on old traditions and current dogmas that "the heavens and the

earth which are now are kept by the word of God in store to be

destroyed by fire in the day of judgment, when the perdition of

ungodly men shall be sealed." "The delay of the Lord to fulfil his

promise is not from procrastination, but from his long suffering

who is not willing that any should perish." He waits "that all may

come to repentance." But his patience will end, and "the day of

God come as a thief in the night, when the heavens, being on fire,

shall pass away with a crash, and the elements melt with fervent

heat." There are two ways in which these declarations may be

explained, though in either case the events they refer to are to

occur in connection with the physical reappearance of Christ.

First, they may be taken in a highly figurative sense, as meaning

the moral overthrow of evil and the establishment of righteousness

in the world. Similar expressions were often used thus by the

ancient Hebrew prophets, who describe the triumphs of Israel and

the destruction of their enemies, the Edomites or the Assyrians,

by the interposition of Jehovah's arm, in such phrases as these.

"The mountains melt, the valleys cleave asunder like wax before a

fire, like waters poured over a precipice." "The heavens shall be

rolled up like a scroll, all their hosts shall melt away and fall

down; for Jehovah holdeth a great slaughter in the land of Edom:

her streams shall be turned into pitch, and her dust into

brimstone, and her whole land shall become burning pitch." The

suppression of Satan's power and the setting up of the Messiah's

kingdom might, according to the prophetic idiom, be expressed in

awful images of fire and woe, the destruction of the old, and the

creation of a new, heaven and earth. But, secondly, this

phraseology, as used by the writer of the epistle before us, may

have a literal significance, may have been intended to predict

strictly that the world shall be burned and purged by fire at the

second coming of the Lord. That such a catastrophe would take

place in the last day, or occurred periodically, was notoriously

the doctrine of the Persians and of the Stoics.6 For our own part,

we are convinced that the latter is the real meaning of the

writer. This seems to be shown alike by the connection of his

argument, by the prosaic literality of detail with which he

speaks, and by the earnest exhortations he immediately bases on

the declaration he has made. He reasons that, since the world was

destroyed once by water, it may be again by fire. The deluge he

certainly regarded as literal: was not, then, in his conception,

the fire, too, literal? He says, with calm, prosaic precision,

"The earth and the works that are therein shall be burned up.

Seeing, then, that all these things shall be dissolved, what

manner of persons ought ye to be in all holiness, looking for a

new heaven and a new earth, and striving that ye may be found by

him in peace, without spot, and blameless!" We do not suppose this

writer expected the annihilation of the physical creation, but

only that the fire would destroy all unransomed creatures from its

surface, and thoroughly purify its frame, and make it clean and

fit for a new race of sinless and immortal men.

"Tears shall not break from their full source,

Nor Anguish stray from her Tartarean den,

The golden years maintain a course

Not undiversified, though smooth and even,

We not be mock'd with glimpse and shadow then,

Bright seraphs mix familiarly with men,

And earth and sky compose a universal heaven."

We have now arrived at the threshold of the last book in the New

Testament, that book which, in the words of Lucke, "lies like a

Sphinx at the lofty outgate of the Bible." There are three modes

of interpreting the Apocalypse, each of which has had numerous and

distinguished advocates. First, it may be regarded as a congeries

of inspired prophecies, a scenic unfolding, with infallible

foresight, of the chief events of Christian history from the first

century till now, and onwards. This view the combined effect of

the facts in the case and of all the just considerations

appropriate to the subject compels us to reject. There is no

evidence to support it; the application of it is crowded with

egregious follies and absurdities. We thus simply state the result

of our best investigation and judgment, for there is no space here

to discuss it in detail. Secondly, the book may be taken as a

symbolic exhibition of the transitional crises, exposures,

struggles, and triumphs of the individual soul, a description of

personal experience, a picture of the inner life of the Christian

in a hostile world. The contents of it can be made to answer to

such a characterization only by the determined exercise of an

unrestrained fancy, or by the theory of a double sense, as the

Swedenborgians expound it. This method of interpreting the

Revelation is adopted, not by scholarly thinkers, who, by the

light of learning and common sense, seek to discern what the

writer meant to express, but by those persons who go to the

obscure document, with traditional superstition and lawless

imaginations, to see what lessons they can find there for their

experimental guidance and edification. We suppose that every

intelligent and informed student who has

6 Cicero de Nat. Deorum, lib. ii. cap. 46. Also Ovid, Minucius

Felix, Seneca, and other authorities, as quoted by Rosenmuller on

2 Peter iii. 7.

examined the subject with candid independence holds it as an

exegetical axiom that the Apocalypse is neither a pure prophecy,

blazing full illumination from Patmos along the track of the

coming centuries, nor an exhaustive vision of the experience of

the faithful Christian disciple. We are thus brought to the third

and, as we think, the correct mode of considering this remarkable

work. It is an outburst from the commingled and seething mass of

opinions, persecutions, hopes, general experience, and expectation

of the time when it was written. This is the view which would

naturally arise in the mind of an impartial student from the

nature of the case, and from contemplating the fervid faith,

suffering, lowering elements, and thick coming events of the

apostolic age. It also strikingly corresponds with numerous

express statements and with the whole obvious spirit and plan of

the work; for its descriptions and appeals have the vivid colors,

the thrilling tones, the significantly detailed allusions to

experiences and opinions and anticipations notoriously existing at

the time, which belong to present or immediately impending scenes.

This way of considering the Apocalypse likewise enables one who is

acquainted with the early Jewish Christian doctrines, legends, and

hopes, to explain clearly a large number of passages in it whose

obscurity has puzzled many a commentator. We should be glad to

give various illustrations of this, if our limits did not confine

us strictly to the one class of texts belonging to the doctrine of

a future life. Furthermore, nearly all the most gifted critics,

such as Ewald, Bleek, Lucke, De Wette, those whose words on such

matters as these are weightiest, now agree in concluding that the

Revelation of John was a product springing out of the intense

Jewish Christian belief and experience of the age, and referring,

in its dramatic scenery and predictions, to occurrences supposed

to be then transpiring or very close at hand. Finally, this view

in regard to the Apocalypse is strongly confirmed by a comparison

of that production with the several other works similar to it in

character and nearly contemporaneous in origin. These apocryphal

productions were written or compiled according to the pretty

general agreement of the great scholars who have criticized them

somewhere between the beginning of the first century before, and

the middle of the second century after, Christ. We merely propose

here, in the briefest manner, to indicate the doctrine of a future

life contained in them, as an introduction to an exposition of

that contained in the New Testament Apocalypse.

In the TESTAMENT OF THE TWELVE PATRIARCHS it is written that "the

under world shall be spoiled through the death of the Most

Exalted."7 Again, we read, "The Lord shall make battle against the

devil, and conquer him, and rescue from him the captive souls of

the righteous. The just shall rejoice in Jerusalem, where the Lord

shall reign himself, and every one that believes in him shall

reign in truth in the heavens."8 Farther on the writer says of the

Lord, after giving an account of his crucifixion, "He shall rise

up from the under world and ascend into heaven."9 These extracts

seem to imply the common doctrine of that time, that Christ

descended into the under world, freed the captive saints, and rose

into heaven, and would soon return to establish his throne in

Jerusalem, to reign there for a time with his accepted followers.

7 See this book in Fabricii Codex Pseudepigraphus Veteris

Testamenti, Test. Lev. sect. iv.

8 Ibid. Test. Dan. sect. v.

9 Ibid. Test. Benj. sect. ix.

The FOURTH BOOK OF EZRA contains scattered declarations and hints

of the same nature.10 It describes a vision of the Messiah, on

Mount Zion, distributing crowns to those confessors of his name

who had died in their fidelity.11 The world is said to be full of

sorrows and oppressions; and as the souls of the just ask when the

harvest shall come,12 for the good to be rewarded and the wicked

to be punished, they are told that the day of liberation is not

far distant, though terrible trials and scourges must yet precede

it. "My Son Jesus shall be revealed." "My Son the Christ shall

die; and then a new age shall come, the earth shall give up the

dead, sinners shall be plunged into the bottomless abyss, and

Paradise shall appear in all its glory."13 The "Son of God will

come and consume his enemies with fire; but the elect will be

protected and made happy."14

The ASCENSION OF ISAIAH is principally occupied with an account of

the rapture of the soul of that prophet through the seven heavens,

and of what he there saw and learned. It describes the descent of

Christ, the beloved Son of God, through all the heavens, to the

earth; his death; his resurrection after three days; his victory

over Satan and his angels, who dwell in the welkin or higher

region of the air; and his return to the right hand of God.15 It

predicts great apostasy and sin among the disciples of the

apostles, and much dissension respecting the nearness of the

second advent of Christ.16 It emphatically declares that "Christ

shall come with his angels, and shall drag Satan and his powers

into Gehenna. Then all the saints shall descend from heaven in

their heavenly clothing, and dwell in this world; while the saints

who had not died shall be similarly clothed, and after a time

leave their bodies here, that they may assume their station in

heaven. The general resurrection and judgment will follow, when

the ungodly will be devoured by fire."17 The author as Gesenius,

with almost all the rest of the critics, says was unquestionably a

Jewish Christian, and his principal design was to set forth the

speedy second coming of Christ, and the glorious triumph of the

saints that would follow with the condign punishment of the

wicked.

The first book of the SIBYLLINE ORACLES contains a statement that

in the golden age the souls of all men passed peacefully into the

under world, to tarry there until the judgment; a prediction of a

future Messiah; and an account of his death, resurrection, and

ascension. The second book begins with a description of the

horrors that will precede the last time, threats against the

persecuting tyrants, and promises to the faithful, especially to

the martyrs, and closes with an account of the general judgment,

when Elijah shall come from heaven, consuming flames break out,

all souls be summoned to the tribunal of God at whose right hand

Christ will sit, the bodies of the dead be raised, the righteous

be purified, and the wicked be plunged into final ruin.

The fundamental thought and aim of the apocryphal BOOK OF ENOCH

are the second coming of Christ to judge the world, the

encouragement of the Christians, and the warning

10 See the abstract of it given in section vi. of Stuart's

Commentary on the Apocalypse.

11 Cap. ii. 12 Cap. iv. 13 Cap. v., vii. 14 Cap. xiii., xvi.

15 Ascensio Isaia Vatis, a Ricardo Laurence, cap. ix., x., xi.

16 Ibid. cap. ii., iii.

17 Ibid. cap. iv. 13-18.

of their oppressors by declarations of approaching deliverance to

those and vengeance to these. This is transparent at frequent

intervals through the whole book.18 "Ye righteous, wait with

patient hope: your cries have cried for judgment, and it shall

come, and the gates of heaven shall be opened to you." "Woe to

you, powerful oppressors, false witnesses! for you shall suddenly

perish." "The voices of slain saints accusing their murderers, the

oppressors of their brethren, reach to heaven with interceding

cries for swift justice."19 When that justice comes, "the horse

shall wade up to his breast, and the chariot shall sink to its

axle, in the blood of sinners."20 The author teaches that the

souls of men at death go into the under world, "a place deep and

dark, where all souls shall be collected;" "where they shall

remain in darkness till the day of judgment," the spirits of the

righteous being in peace and joy, separated from the tormented

spirits of the wicked, who have spurned the Messiah and persecuted

his disciples.21 A day of judgment is at hand. "Behold, he cometh,

with ten thousand of his saints, to execute judgment." Then the

righteous shall rise from the under world, be approved, become as

angels, and ascend to heaven. But the wicked shall not rise: they

remain imprisoned below forever.22 The angels descend to earth to

dwell with men, and the saints ascend to heaven to dwell with

angels.23 "From beginning to end, like the Apocalypse, the book is

filled," says Professor Stuart, (and the most careless reader must

remark it,) "with threats for the wicked persecutors and

consolations for the suffering pious." A great number of

remarkable correspondences between passages in this book and

passages in the Apocalypse solicit a notice which our present

single object will not allow us to give them here. An under world

divided into two parts, a happy for the good, a wretched for the

bad; temporary woes prevailing on the earth; the speedy advent of

Christ for a vindication of his power and his servants; the

resurrection of the dead; the final translation of the accepted

into heaven, and the hopeless dooming of the rejected into the

abyss, these are the features in the book before us which we are

now to remember.

There is one other extant apocryphal book whose contents are

strictly appropriate to the subject we have in hand, namely, the

APOCALYPSE OF JOHN.24 It claims to be the work of the Apostle John

himself. It represents John as going to Mount Tabor after the

ascension of Christ, and there praying that it may be revealed to

him when the second coming of Christ will occur, and what will be

the consequences of it. In answer to his request, a long and

minute disclosure is made. The substance of it is, that, after

famines and woes, Antichrist will appear and reign three years.

Then Enoch and Elijah will come to expose him; but they will die,

and all men with them. The earth will be purified with fire, the

dead will rise, Christ

18 Book of Enoch, translated into English by Dr. R. Laurence. See

particularly the following places: i. 1 5; lii. 7; liv. 12; lxi.

15; lxii. 14, 15; xciv.; xcv.; civ.

19 Ibid. cap. ix. 9 11; xxii. 5 8; xlvii. 1-4.

20 Ibid. cap. xcviii. 3.

21 Ibid. cap. x. 6 9, 15, 16; xxii. 2 5, 11 13; cii. 6; ciii. 5.

22 Ibid. cap. xxii. 14, 15; xlv. 2; xlvi. 4; 1. 1-4.

23 cap. xxxviii. xl.

24 See the abstract of it given in Lucke's Einleit. in die

Offenbar. Joh., cap. 2, sect. 17.

will descend in pomp, with myriads of angels, and the judgment

will follow. The spirits of Antichrist will be hurled into a gulf

of outer darkness, so deep that a heavy stone would not plunge to

the bottom in three years. Unbelievers, sinners, hypocrites, will

be cast into the under world; while true Christians are placed at

the right hand of Christ, all radiant with glory. The good and

accepted will then dwell in an earthly paradise, with angels, and

be free from all evils.

In addition to these still extant Apocalypses, we have references

in the works of the Fathers to a great many others long since

perished; especially the Apocalypses of Adam, Abraham, Moses,

Elijah, Hystaspes, Paul, Peter, Thomas, Cerinthus, and Stephen. So

far as we have any clew, by preserved quotations or otherwise, to

the contents of these lost productions, they seem to have been

much occupied with the topics of the avenging and redeeming advent

of the Messiah, the final judgment of mankind, the supernal and

subterranean localities, the resurrection of the dead, the

inauguration of an earthly paradise, the condemnation of the

reprobate to the abyss beneath, the translation of the elect to

the Angelic realm on high. These works, all taken together, were

plainly the offspring of the mingled mass of glowing faiths,

sufferings, fears, and hopes, of the age they belonged to. An

acquaintance with them will help us to appreciate and explain many

things in our somewhat kindred New Testament Apocalypse, by

placing us partially in the circumstances and mental attitude of

the writer and of those for whom it was written.

The Persian Jewish and Jewish Christian notions and

characteristics of the Book of Revelation are marked and

prevailing, as every prepared reader must perceive. The threefold

division of the universe into the upper world of the angels, the

middle world of men, and the under world of the dead; the keys of

the bottomless pit; the abode of Satan, the accuser, in heaven;

his revolt; the war in the sky between his seduced host and the

angelic army under Michael, and the thrusting down of the former;

the banquet of birds on the flesh of kings, mighty men, and

horses; the battle of Gog and Magog; the tarrying of souls under

the altar of God; the temple in heaven containing the ark of the

covenant, and the scene of a various ritual service; the twelve

gates of the celestial city bearing the names of the twelve tribes

of the children of Israel, and the twelve foundations of the walls

having the names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb; the bodily

resurrection and general judgment, and the details of its sequel,

all these doctrines and specimens of imagery, with a hundred

others, carry us at once into the Zend Avesta, the Talmud, and the

Ebionitish documents of the earliest Christians, who mixed their

interpretations of the mission and teaching of Christ with the

poetic visions of Zoroaster and the cabalistic dogmatics of the

Pharisees. 25

It is astonishing that any intelligent person can peruse the

Apocalypse and still suppose that it is occupied with prophecies

of remote events, events to transpire successively in distant ages

and various lands. Immediateness, imminency, hazardous urgency,

swiftness, alarms, are written all over the book. A suspense,

frightfully thrilling, fills it, as if the world were holding its

breath in view of the universal crash that was coming with

electric velocity.

25 See, e. g., Corrodi, Kritische Geschichte des Chiliasmus, band

ii. th. 3 7; Gfrorer, Geschichte Urchristenthums, abth. ii. kap.

8 10; Schottgen in Apoc. xii. 6 9; ibid. in 2 Cor. v. 2.

Four words compose the key to the Apocalypse: Rescue, Reward,

Overthrow, Vengeance. The followers of Christ are now persecuted

and slain by the tyrannical rulers of the earth. Let them be of

good cheer: they shall speedily be delivered. Their tyrants shall

be trampled down in "blood flowing up to the horse bridles," and

they shall reign in glory. "Here is the faith and the patience of

the saints," trusting that, if "true unto death, they shall have a

crown of life," and "shall not be hurt of the second death," but

shall soon rejoice over the triumphant establishment of the

Messiah's kingdom and the condign punishment of his enemies who

are now "making themselves drunk with the blood of the martyrs of

Jesus." The Beast, described in the thirteenth chapter, is

unquestionably Nero; and this fact shows the expected

immediateness of the events pictured in connection with the rise

and destruction of that monstrous despot.26 The truth of this

representation is sealed by the very first verses of the book,

indicating the nature of its contents and the period to which they

refer: "The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him,

to show unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass:

Blessed are they who hear the words of this prophecy and keep

them; for the time is at hand."

This rescue and reward of the faithful, this overthrow and

punishment of the wicked, were to be effected by the agency of a

unique and sublime personage, who was expected very soon to

appear, with an army of angels from heaven, for this purpose. The

conception of the nature, rank, and offices of Jesus Christ which

existed in the mind of the writer of the Apocalypse is in some

respects but obscurely hinted in the words he employs; yet the

relationship of those words to other and fuller sources of

information in the contemporaneous notions of his countrymen is

such as to give us great help in arriving at his ideas. He

represents Christ as distinct from and subordinate to God. He

makes Christ say, "To him that overcometh I will give power over

the nations, even as I received of my Father." He characterizes

him as "the beginning of the creation of God," and describes him

as "mounted on a white horse, leading the heavenly armies to war,

and his name is called the Logos of God." These terms evidently

correspond to the phrases in the introduction to the Gospel of

John, and in the Book of the Wisdom of Solomon, where are unfolded

some portions of that great doctrine, so prevalent among the early

Fathers, which was borrowed and adapted by them from the Persian

Honover, the Hebrew Wisdom, and the Platonic Logos.27 "In the

beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and all

things were made by him;... and the Logos was made flesh and dwelt

among us."28 "God of our fathers, and Lord of mercy, who hast made

all things by thy Logos."29 "Thine almighty Logos leaped down from

heaven from his royal throne, a fierce warrior, into the midst of

a land of destruction."30 "Plainly enough, the Apocalyptic view of

Christ is based on that profound Logos doctrine so copiously

26 See the excursus by Stuart in his Commentary on the Apoc. xiii.

18, which conclusively shows that the Beast could be no other than

Nero.

27 Lucke, Einleitung in das Evang. Joh.

28 Evang. Joh. i. 1, 3, 14.

29 Wisdom of Solomon, ix. 1, 2.

30 Ibid. xviii. 15.

developed in the writings of Philo Judaus and so distinctly

endorsed in numerous passages of the New Testament. First, there

is the absolute God. Next, there is the Logos, the first begotten

Son and representative image of God, the instrumental cause of the

creation, the head of all created beings. This Logos, born into

our world as a man, is Christ. Around him are clustered all the

features and actions that compose the doctrine of the last things.

The vast work of redemption and judgment laid upon him has in part

been already executed, and in part remains yet to be done.

We are first to inquire, then, into the significance of what the

writer of the Apocalypse supposes has already been effected by

Christ in his official relations between God and men, so far as

regards the general subject of a life beyond the grave. A few

brief and vague but comprehensive expressions include all that he

has written which furnishes us a guide to his thoughts on this

particular. He describes Jesus, when advanced to his native

supereminent dignity in heaven, as the "Logos, clothed in a

vesture dipped in blood," and also as "the Lamb that was slain,"

to whom the celestial throng sing a new song, saying, "Thou hast

redeemed us unto God by thy blood." Christ, he says, "loved us,

and washed us from our sins in his own blood." He represents the

risen Savior as declaring, "I am he that liveth, and was dead,

and, behold, I am alive for evermore, and have the keys of the

under world and of death." "Jesus Christ," again he writes, "is

the faithful witness, the first begotten from the dead." What,

now, is the real meaning of these pregnant phrases? What is the

complete doctrine to which fragmentary references are here made?

We are confident that it is this. Mankind, in consequence of sin,

were alienated from God, and banished, after death, to Hades, the

subterranean empire of shadows. Christ, leaving his exalted state

in heaven, was born into the world as a messenger, or "faithful

witness," of surprising grace to them from God, and died that he

might fulfil his mission as the agent of their redemption, by

descending into the great prison realm of the dead, and, exerting

his irresistible power, return thence to light and life, and

ascend into heaven as the forerunner and pledge of the deliverance

and ascension of others. Moses Stuart, commenting on the clause

"first begotten from the dead," says, "Christ was in fact the

first who enjoyed the privilege of a resurrection to eternal glory

and he was constituted the leader of all who should afterwards be

thus raised from the dead."31 All who had died, with the sole

exception of Christ, were yet in the under world. He, since his

triumphant subdual of its power and return to heaven, possessed

authority over it, and would ere long summon its hosts to

resurrection, as he declares: "I was dead, and, behold, I am alive

for ever more, and have the keys of the under world." The figure

is that of a conqueror, who, returning from a captured and subdued

city, bears the key of it with him, a trophy of his triumph and a

pledge of its submission. The text "Thou hast redeemed us unto God

by thy blood" is not received in an absolutely literal sense by

any theological sect whatever. The severest Calvinist does not

suppose that the physical blood shed on the cross is meant; but he

explains it as denoting the atoning efficacy of the vicarious

sufferings of Christ. But this interpretation is as forced and

constructive an exposition as the one we have given, and is not

31 Stuart, Comm. in Apoc. i. 5.

warranted by the theological opinions of the apostolic age, which

do, on the contrary, support and necessitate the other. The direct

statement is, that men were redeemed unto God by the blood of

Christ. All agree that in the word "blood" is wrapped up a

figurative meaning. The Calvinistic dogma makes it denote the

satisfaction of the law of retributive justice by a substitutional

anguish. We maintain that a true historical exegesis, with far

less violence to the use of language, and consistently with known

contemporaneous ideas, makes it denote the death of Christ, and

the events which were supposed to have followed his death, namely,

his appearance among the dead, and his ascent to heaven,

preparatory to their ascent, when they should no longer be exiled

in Hades, but should dwell with God. Out of an abundance of

illustrative authorities we will cite a few.

Augustine describes "the ancient saints" as being "in the under

world, in places most remote from the tortures of the impious,

waiting for Christ's blood and descent to deliver them."32

Epiphanius says, "Christ was the first that rose from the under

world to heaven from the time of the creation."33 Lactantius

affirms, "Christ's descent into the under world and ascent into

heaven were necessary to give man the hope of a heavenly

immortality."34 Hilary of Poictiers says, "Christ went down into

Hades for two reasons: first, to fulfil the law imposed on mankind

that every soul on leaving the body shall descend into the under

world, and, secondly, to preach the Christian religion to the

dead."35 Chrysostom writes, "When the Son of God cometh, the earth

shall burst open, and all the men that ever were born, from Adam's

birth up to that day, shall rise up out of the earth."36 Irenaus

testifies, "I have heard from a certain presbyter, who heard it

from those who had seen the apostles and received their

instructions, that Christ descended into the under world, and

preached the gospel and his own advent to the souls there, and

remitted the sins of those who believed on him."37 Eusebius

records that, "after the ascension of Jesus, Thomas sent Thaddeus,

one of the Seventy, to Abgarus, King of Edessa. This disciple told

the king how that Jesus, having been crucified, descended into the

under world, and burst the bars which had never before been

broken, and rose again, and also raised with himself the dead that

had slept for ages; and how he descended alone, but ascended with

a great multitude to his Father; and how he was about to come

again to judge the living and the dead."38 Finally, we cite the

following undeniable statement from Daille's famous work on the

"Right Use of the Fathers:" "That heaven shall not be opened till

the second coming of Christ and the day of judgment, that during

this time the souls of all men, with a few exceptions, are shut up

in the under world, was held by Justin Martyr, Irenaus,

Tertullian, Augustine, Origen, Lactantius, Victorinus, Ambrose,

Chrysostom, Theodoret, OEcumenius, Aretas, Prudentius,

Theophylact, Bernard,

32 De Civitate Dei, lib. xx. cap. 15.

33 In Resurrectionem Christi.

34 Divin. Instit. lib. iv. cap. 19, 20.

35 Hilary in Ps. cxviii. et cxix.

36 Homil. in Rom. viii. 25.

37 Adv. Hares. lib. iv. sect. 45.

38 Ecc. Hist. lib. i. cap. 13.

and many others, as is confessed by all. This doctrine is

literally held by the whole Greek Church at the present day. Nor

did any of the Latins expressly deny any part of it until the

Council of Florence, in the year of our Lord 1439."39

In view of these quotations, and of volumes of similar ones which

might be adduced, we submit to the candid reader that the meaning

most probably in the mind of the writer of the Apocalypse when he

wrote the words "redemption by the Blood of Christ" was this, the

rescue certified to men by the commissioned power and devoted

self sacrifice of Christ in dying, going down to the mighty

congregation of the dead, proclaiming good tidings, breaking the

hopeless bondage of death and Hades, and ascending as the pioneer

of a new way to God. If before his death all men were supposed to

go down to helpless confinement in the under world on account of

sin, but after his resurrection the promise of an ascension to

heaven was made to them through his gospel and exemplification,

then well might the grateful believers, fixing their hearts on his

willing martyrdom in their behalf, exclaim, "He loved us, and

washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings

and priests unto God." It is certainly far more natural, far more

reasonable, to suppose that the scriptural phrase "the blood of

Christ" means "the death of Christ," with its historical

consequences, than to imagine that it signifies a complicated and

mysterious scheme of sacerdotal or ethical expiation, especially

when that scheme is unrelated to contemporaneous opinion,

irreconcilable withmorality,and confessedly nowhere plainly stated

in Scripture, but a matter of late and laborious construction and

inference. We have not spoken of the strictly moral and subjective

mission and work of Christ, as conceived by the author of the

Apocalypse, his influences to cleanse the springs of character,

purify and inspire the heart, rectify and elevate the motives,

regenerate and sanctify the soul and the life, because all this is

plain and unquestioned. But he also believed in something

additional to this, an objective function: and what that was we

think is correctly explained above.

We are next to inquire more immediately into the closing parts of

the doctrine of the last things. Christ has appeared, declared the

tidings of grace, died, visited the dead, risen victoriously, and

gone back to heaven, where he now tarries. But there remain many

things for him, as the eschatological King, yet to do. What are

they? and what details are connected with them? First of all, he

is soon to return from heaven, visiting the earth a second time.

The first chapter of the book begins by declaring that it is "a

revelation of things which must shortly come to pass," and

"blessed is he that readeth; for the time is at hand." The last

chapter is full of such repetitions as these: "things which must

shortly be done;" "Behold, I come quickly;" "The time is at hand;"

"He that is unjust, let him be unjust still, and he that is holy,

let him be holy still;" "Surely I come quickly;" "Even so, come,

Lord Jesus." Herder says, in his acute and eloquent work on the

Apocalypse, "There is but one voice in it, through all its

epistles, seals, trumpets, signs, and plagues, namely, THE LORD IS

COMING!" The souls of the martyrs, impatiently waiting, under the

altar, the completion of the great drama, cry, "How long, O Lord,

dost thou delay to avenge our blood?" and they are told that "they

shall

39 Lib. ii. cap. 4, pp. 272, 273 of the English translation.

rest only for a little season." Tertullian writes, without a trace

of doubt, "Is not Christ quickly to come from heaven with a

quaking of the whole universe, with a shuddering of the world,

amidst the wailings of all men save the Christians?" The

Apocalyptic seer makes Christ say, "Behold, I come as a thief in

the night: blessed is he that watcheth." Accordingly, "a sentinel

gazed wherever a Christian prayed, and, though all the watchmen

died without the sight," the expectation lingered for centuries.

The Christians of the New Testament time to borrow the words of

one of the most competent of living scholars "carried forward to

the account of Christ in years to come the visions which his stay,

as they supposed, was too short to realize, and assigned to him a

quick return to finish what was yet unfulfilled. The suffering,

the scorn, the rejection of men, the crown of thorns, were over

and gone; the diadem, the clarion, the flash of glory, the troop

of angels, were ready to burst upon the world, and might be looked

for at midnight or at noon."40

Secondly, when Christ returned, he was to avenge the sufferings

and reward the fidelity of his followers, tread the heathen

tyrants in the wine press of his wrath, and crown the persecuted

saints with a participation in his glory. When "the time of his

wrath is come, he shall give reward to the prophets, and to the

saints, and to them that fear his name, and shall destroy them

that destroy the earth." "The kings, captains, mighty men, rich

men, bondmen, and freemen, shall cry to the mountains and rocks,

Fall on us, and hide us from the wrath of the Lamb." "To him that

overcometh, and doeth my works, I will give power over the

Gentiles;" "I will give him the morning star;" "I will grant him

to sit with me on my throne." Independently, moreover, of these

distinct texts, the whole book is pervaded with the thought that,

at the speedy second advent of the Messiah, all his enemies shall

be fearfully punished, his servants eminently compensated and

glorified.41

Thirdly, the writer of the Apocalypse expected in accordance with

that Jewish anticipation of an earthly Messianic kingdom which was

adopted with some modifications by the earliest Christians that

Jesus, on his return, having subdued his foes, would reign for a

season, in great glory, on the earth, surrounded by the saints. "A

door was opened in heaven," and the seer looked in, and saw a

vision of the redeemed around the throne, and heard them "singing

a new song unto the Lamb that was slain," in the course of which,

particularizing the favors obtained for them by him, they say, "We

shall reign upon the earth." Again, the writer says that "the

worshippers of the beast and of his image shall be tormented with

fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the

presence of the Lamb." Now, the lake of sulphurous fire into which

the reprobate were to be thrust was located, not in the sky, but

under the surface of the earth. The foregoing statement,

therefore, implies that Christ and his angels would be tarrying on

the earth when the final woe of the condemned was inflicted. But

we need not rely on indirect arguments. The writer explicitly

declares

40 Martineau, Sermon, "The God of Revelation his own Interpreter."

41 It seems to have been a Jewish expectation that when the

Messiah should appear he would thrust his enemies into Hades. In a

passage of the Talmud Satan is represented as seeing the Messiah

under the Throne of Glory: he falls on his face at the sight,

exclaiming, "This is the Messiah, who will precipitate me and all

the Gentiles into the under world." Bertholdt, Christologia, sect.

36.

that, in his vision of what was to take place, the Christian

martyrs, "those who were slain for the witness of Jesus, lived and

reigned with Christ a thousand years, while the rest of the dead

lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is

the first resurrection. Then Satan was loosed out of his prison,

and gathered the hosts of Gog and Magog to battle, and went up on

the breadth of the earth and compassed the camp of the saints

about, and fire came down out of heaven and devoured them." It

seems impossible to avoid seeing in this passage a plain statement

of the millennial reign of Christ on the earth with his risen

martyrs.

Fourthly, at the termination of the period just referred to, the

author of the Apocalypse thought all the dead would be raised and

the tribunal of the general judgment held. As Lactantius says,

"All souls are detained in custody in the under world until the

last day; then the just shall rise and reign; afterwards there

will be another resurrection of the wicked."42 "The time of the

dead is come, that they should be judged." "And I saw the dead,

small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened, and

the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the

books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead

which were in it, and death and the under world delivered up the

dead which were in them, and they were judged, every man according

to his works." "Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first

resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they

shall be priests of God and of Christ, and reign with him a

thousand years." This text, with its dark and tacit reference by

contrast to those who have no lot in the millennial kingdom,

brings us to the next step in our exposition.

For, fifthly, after the general resurrection and judgment at the

close of the thousand years, the sentence of a hopeless doom to

hell is to be executed on the condemned. "Whosoever was not found

written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire." "The

fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and

whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall

have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone;

which is the second death." The "second death" is a term used by

Onkelos in his Targum,43 and sometimes in the Talmud, and by the

Rabbins generally. It denotes, as employed by them, the return of

the wicked into hell after their summons thence for judgment.44 In

the Apocalypse, its relative meaning is this. The martyrs, who

were slain for their allegiance to the gospel, died once, and

descended into the under world, the common realm of death. At the

coming of Christ they were to rise and join him, and to die no

more. This was the first resurrection. At the close of the

millennium, all the rest of the dead were to rise and be judged,

and the rejected portion of them were to be thrust back again

below. This was a second death for them, a fate from which the

righteous were exempt. There was a difference, greatly for the

worse in the latter, between their condition in the two deaths. In

the former they descended to the dark under world, the silent and

temporary abode of the universal dead; but in the latter they went

down "into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the devil and the

beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and

night for

42 Divin. Instit. lib. vii. cap. 20, 21, 26.

43 on Deut. xxxiii. 6.

44 Gfrorer, Geschichte des Urchristenthums, kap. 10. s. 289.

ever and ever." For "Death and Hades, having delivered up the dead

which were in them, were cast into the lake of fire. This is the

second death." It is plain that here the common locality of

departed souls is personified as two demons, Death and Hades, and

the real thought meant to be conveyed is, that this region is to

be sunk beneath a "Tartarean drench," which shall henceforth roll

in burning billows over its victims there, "the smoke of their

torment ascending up for ever and ever." This awful imagery of a

lake of flaming sulphur, in which the damned were plunged, was of

comparatively late origin or adoption among the Jews, from whom

the Christians received it. The native Hebrew conception of the

state of the dead was that of the voiceless gloom and dismal

slumber of Sheol, whither all alike went. The notion of fiery

tortures inflicted there on the wicked was either conceived by the

Pharisees from the loathed horrors of the filth fire kept in the

vale of Hinnom, outside of Jerusalem, (which is the opinion of

most commentators,) or was imagined from the sea of burning

brimstone that showered from heaven and submerged Sodom and

Gomorrah in a vast fire pool, (which is maintained by

Bretschneider and others,) or was derived from the Egyptians, or

the Persians, or the Hindus, or the Greeks, all of whom had lakes

and rivers of fire in their theological hells, long before history

reveals the existence of such a belief among the Jews, (which is

the conclusion of many learned authors and critics.)

We have now reached the last feature in the scheme of eschatology

shadowed forth in the Apocalypse, the most obscure and difficult

point of all, namely, the locality and the principal elements of

the final felicity of the saved. The difficulty of clearly

settling this question is twofold, arising, first, from the swift

and partial glimpses which are all that the writer yields us on

the subject, and, secondly, from the impossibility of deciding

with precision how much of his language is to be regarded as

figurative and how much as literal, where the poetic presentation

of symbol ends and where the direct statement of fact begins. A

large part of the book is certainly written in prophetic figures

and images, spiritual visions, never meant to be accepted in a

prosaic sense with severe detail. And yet, at the same time, all

these imaginative emblems were, unquestionably, intended to

foreshadow, in various kinds and degrees, doctrinal conceptions,

hopes, fears, threats, promises, historical realities, past,

present, or future. But to separate sharply the dress and the

substance, the superimposed symbols and the underlying realities,

is always an arduous, often an impossible, achievement. The writer

of the Apocalypse plainly believed that the souls of all, except

the martyrs, at death descended to the under world, and would

remain there till after the second coming of Christ. But whether

he thought that the martyrs were excepted, and would at death

immediately rise into heaven and there await the fulfilment of

time, is a disputed point. For our own part, we think it extremely

doubtful, and should rather decide in the negative. In the first

place, his expressions on this subject seem essentially

figurative. He describes the prayers of the saints as being poured

out from golden vials and burned as incense on a golden altar in

heaven before the throne of God. "Under that altar," he says, "I

saw the souls of them that were slain for the word of God." If the

souls of the martyrs, in his belief, were really admitted into

heaven, would he have conceived of them as huddled under the altar

and not walking at liberty? Does not the whole idea appear rather

like a rhetorical image than like a sober theological doctrine?

True, the scene is pictured in heaven; but then it is a picture,

and not a conclusion. With De Wette, we regard it, not as a

dogmatic, but as a poetical and prophetic, representation. And

in regard to the seer's vision of the innumerable company of the

redeemed in heaven, surrounding the throne and celebrating the

praises of God and the Lamb, surely it is obvious enough that

this, like the other affiliated visions, is a vision, by

inspired insight, in the present tense, of what is yet to

occur in the successive unfolding of the rapid scenes in the

great drama of Christ's redemptive work, a prophetic vision of

the future, not of what already is. We know that in Tertullian's

time the idea was entertained by some that Christian martyrs, as

a special allotment, should pass at once from their sufferings to

heaven, without going, as all others must, into the under world;

but the evidence preponderates with us, upon the whole, that no

such doctrine is really implied in the Apocalypse. In the

fourteenth chapter, the author describes the hundred and forty

four thousand who were redeemed from among men, as standing with

the Lamb on Mount Zion and hearing a voice from heaven singing a

new song, which no man, save the hundred and forty four thousand,

could learn. The probabilities are certainly strongest that this

great company of the selected "first fruits unto God and the

Lamb," now standing on the earth, had not yet been in heaven; for

they only learn the heavenly song which is sung before the throne

by hearing it chanted down from heaven in a voice like

multitudinous thunders.

Finally, the most convincing proof that the writer did not suppose

that the martyrs entered heaven before the second advent of

Christ a proof which, taken by itself, would seem to leave no

doubt on the subject is this. In the famous scene detailed in the

twentieth chapter usually called by commentators the martyr scene

it is said that "the souls of them that were beheaded for the word

of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, lived and reigned

with Christ a thousand years. This is the first resurrection."

Now, is it not certain that if the writer supposed these souls had

never been in the under world, but in heaven, he could not have

designated their preliminary descent from above as "the first

resurrection," the first rising up? That phrase implies, we think,

that all the dead were below: the faithful and chosen ones were to

rise first to reign a while with Jesus, and after that the rest

should rise to be judged. After that judgment, which was expected

to be on earth in presence of the descended Lamb and his angels,

the lost were to be plunged, as we have already seen, into the

subterranean pit of torture, the unquenchable lake of fire. But

what was to become of the righteous and redeemed? Whether, by the

Apocalyptic representation, they were to remain forever on earth,

or to ascend into heaven, is a question which has been zealously

debated for over sixteen hundred years, and in some theological

circles is still warmly discussed. Were the angels who came down

to the earth with Christ to the judgment never to return to their

native seats? Were they permanently to transfer their deathless

citizenship from the sky to Judea? Were the constitution of human

nature and the essence of human society to be abrogated, and the

members of the human family to cease enlarging, lest they should

overflow the borders of the world? Was God himself literally to

desert his ancient abode, and, with the celestial city and all its

angelic hierarchy, float from the desolated firmament to Mount

Zion, there to set up the central eternity of his throne. We

cannot believe that such is the meaning, which the seer of the

Apocalypse wished to convey by his symbolic visions and pictures,

any more than we can believe that he means literally to say that

he saw "a woman in heaven clothed with the sun, and the moon under

her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars," or that

there were actually "armies in heaven, seated on white horses

and clothed in fine linen, white and clean, which is the

righteousness of saints." Our conviction is that he expected

the Savior would ascend with his angels and the redeemed

into heaven, the glorious habitation of God above the sky. He

speaks in one place of the "temple of God in heaven, into which no

man could enter until the seven plagues were fulfilled," and in

another place says that the "great multitude of the redeemed are

before the throne of God in heaven, and serve him day and night in

his temple;" and in still another place he describes two prophets,

messengers of God, who had been slain, as coming to life, "and

hearing a great voice from heaven saying to them, 'Come up

hither;' and they ascended up to heaven in a cloud, and their

enemies beheld them." De Wette writes, "It is certain that an

abstract conception of heavenly blessedness with God duskily

hovers over the New Testament eschatology." We think this is true

of the Book of Revelation.

It was a Persian Jewish idea that the original destination of man,

had he not sinned, was heaven. The apostles thought it was a part

of the mission of Christ to restore that lost privilege. We think

the writer of the Apocalypse shared in that belief. His allusions

to a new heaven and a new earth, and to the descent of a New

Jerusalem from heaven, and other related particulars, are symbols

neither novel nor violent to Jewish minds, but both familiar and

expressive, to denote a purifying glorification of the world, the

installation of a divine kingdom, and the brilliant reign of

universal righteousness and happiness among men, as if under the

very eyes of the Messiah and the very sceptre of God. The

Christians shall reign in Jerusalem, which shall be adorned with

indescribable splendors and shall be the centre of a world wide

dominion, the saved nations of the earth surrounding it and

"walking in the light of it, their kings bringing their glory and

honor into it." "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes,

and there shall be no more death." That is, upon the whole, as we

understand the scattered hints relevant to the subject to imply,

when Christ returns to the Father with his chosen, he will leave a

regenerated earth, with Jerusalem for its golden and peerless

capital, peopled, and to be peopled, with rejoicing and immortal

men, who will keep the commandments, be exempt from ancient evils,

hold intimate communion with God and the Lamb, and, from

generation to generation, pass up to heaven through that swift and

painless change, alluded to by Paul, whereby it was intended at

the first that sinless man, his corruptible and mortal putting on

incorruption and immortality, should be fitted for the

companionship of angels in the pure radiance of the celestial

world, and should be translated thither without tasting the

bitterness of death, which was supposed to be the subterranean

banishment of the disembodied ghost.

CHAPTER IV.

PAUL'S DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE.

THE principal difficulty in arriving at the system of thought and

faith in the mind of Paul arises from the fragmentary character of

his extant writings. They are not complete treatises drawn out in

independent statements,butspecial letters full of latent

implications. They were written to meet particular emergencies, to

give advice, to convey or ask information and sympathy, to argue

or decide concerning various matters to a considerable extent of a

personal or local and temporal nature. Obviously their author

never suspected they would be the permanent and immensely

influential documents they have since become. They were not

composed as orderly developments or full presentations of a creed,

but rather as supplements to more adequate oral instruction

previously imparted. He says to the Thessalonians, "Brethren,

stand fast and hold the traditions which ye have been taught,

whether by word or by our epistle." Several of his letters also

perhaps many have been lost. He exhorts the Colossians to "read

likewise the epistle from Laodicea." In his present First Epistle

to the Corinthians he intimates that he had previously

corresponded with them, in the words, "I wrote to you in a

letter." There are good reasons, too, for supposing that he

transmitted other epistles of which we have now no account. Owing,

therefore, to the facts that his principal instructions were given

by word of mouth, and that his surviving writings set forth no

systematic array of doctrines, we have no choice left, if we

desire to know what his opinions concerning the future life were,

when deduced and arranged, but to exercise our learning and our

faculties upon the imperfect discussions and the significant hints

and clews in his extant epistles. Bringing these together, in the

light of contemporary Pharisaic and Christian conceptions and

opinions, we may construct a system from them which will represent

his theory; somewhat as the naturalist from a few fragmentary

bones describes the entire skeleton to which they belonged. As we

proceed to follow this process, we must particularly remember the

leading notions in the doctrinal belief of the Jews at that

period, and the fact that Paul himself was "brought up at the feet

of Gamaliel," "after the most straitest order of the sect, a

Pharisee." When on trial at Jerusalem, he cried, "Men and

brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee: of the hope of

the resurrection of the dead I am called in question." We can

hardly suppose that he would entirely throw off the influence and

form of the Pharisaic dogmas and grasp Christianity in its pure

spirituality. It is most reasonable to expect what we shall find

actually the fact that he would mix the doctrinal and emotional

results of his Pharisaic training with the teachings of Christ,

thus forming a composite system considerably modified from any

then existing. Indeed, a great many obscure texts in Paul may be

made perspicuous by citations from the old Talmudists. Considering

the value and the importance of this means of illustrating the New

Testament, it is neglected by modern commentators in a very

remarkable manner.

In common with his countrymen and the Gentiles, Paul undoubtedly

believed in a world of light and bliss situated over the sky,

where the Deity, surrounded by his angels, reigns in immortal

splendor. According to the Greeks, Zeus and the other gods,

with a few select heroes, there lived an imperishable life.

According to the Hebrews, there was "the house of Jehovah," "the

habitation of eternity," "the world of holy angels." The Old

Testament contains many sublime allusions to this place. Jacob in

his dream saw a ladder set up that reached unto heaven, and the

angels were ascending and descending upon it. Fixing his eyes upon

the summit, the patriarch exclaimed, not referring, as is commonly

supposed, to the ground on which he lay, but to the opening in the

sky through which the angels were passing and repassing, "Surely

this is the house of God and this the gate of heaven." Jehovah is

described as "riding over the heaven of heavens;" as "treading

upon the arch of the sky." The firmament is spoken of as the solid

floor of his abode, where "he layeth the beams of his chambers in

the waters," the "waters above," which the Book of Genesis says

were "divided from the waters beneath." Though this divine world

on high was in the early ages almost universally regarded as a

local reality, it was not conceived by Jews or Gentiles to be the

destined abode of human souls. It was thought to be exclusively

occupied by Jehovah and his angels, or by the gods and their

messengers. Only here and there were scattered a few dim

traditions, or poetic myths, of a prophet, a hero, a god descended

man, who, as a special favor, had been taken up to the supernal

mansions. The common destination of the disembodied spirits of men

was the dark,stupendous realms of the under world. As Augustine

observes, "Christ died after many; he rose before any: by dying he

suffered what many had suffered before; by rising he did what no

one had ever done before."1 These ideas of the celestial and the

infernal localities and of the fate of man were of course

entertained by Paul when he became a Christian. A few texts by way

of evidence of this fact will here suffice. "That at the name of

Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and those on

earth, and those under the earth." "He that descended first into

the lower parts of the earth is the same also that ascended up far

above all heavens." The untenableness of that explanation which

makes the descent into the lower parts of the earth refer to

Christ's descent to earth from his pre existent state in heaven

must be evident, as it seems to us, to every mind. Irenaus,

discussing this very text from Ephesians, exposes the absurdity

and stigmatizes the heresy of those who say that the infernal

world is this earth, ("qui dicunt inferos quidem esse hunc

mundum.")2 "I knew a man caught up to the third heaven, . . .

caught up into paradise." The threefold heaven of the Jews, here

alluded to, was, first, the region of the air, supposed to be

inhabited by evil spirits. Paul repeatedly expresses this idea, as

when he speaks of "the prince of the power of the air, the spirit

that worketh in the children of disobedience," and when he says,

"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against

principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the

darkness, against wicked spirits in heavenly places." The second

heaven comprised the region of the planetary bodies. The third lay

beyond the firmament, and was the actual residence of God and the

angelic hosts. These quotations, sustained as they are by the

well known previous opinions of the Jews, as well as by numerous

unequivocal texts in the writings of the other apostles and by

many additional ones in those

1 Enarratio in Psalmum XC.

2 Adv. Hares. lib. v. cap. 31.

of Paul, are conclusive evidence that he believed in the received

heaven above the blue ether and stellar dome, and in the received

Hadean abyss beneath the earth. In the absence of all evidence to

the contrary, every presumption justifies the supposition that he

also believed as we know all his orthodox contemporaries did that

that under world was the abode of all men after death, and that

that over world was solely the dwelling place of God and the

angels. Nay, we are not left to conjecture; for he expressly

declares of God that he "dwelleth in the light which no man can

approach unto." This conclusion will be abundantly established in

the course of the following exposition.

With these preliminaries, we are prepared to see what was Paul's

doctrine of death and of salvation. There are two prevalent

theories on this subject, both of which we deem partly scriptural,

neither of them wholly so. On the one extreme, the consistent

disciple of Augustine the historic Calvinist attributes to the

apostle the belief that the sin of Adam was the sole cause of

literal death, that but for Adam's fall men would have lived on

the earth forever or else have been translated bodily to heaven

without any previous process of death. That such really was not

the view held by Paul we are convinced. Indeed, there is one

prominent feature in his faith which by itself proves that the

disengagement of the soul from the material frame did not seem to

him an abnormal event caused by the contingency of sin. We refer

to his doctrine of two bodies, the "outward man" and the "inward

man," the "earthly house" and the "heavenly house," the "natural

body" and the "spiritual body." Neander says this is "an express

assertion" of Paul's belief that man was not literally made mortal

by sin, but was naturally destined to emerge from the flesh into a

higher form of life.3 Paul thought that, in the original plan of

God, man was intended to drop his gross, corruptible body and put

on an incorruptible one, like the "glorious body" of the risen

Christ. He distinctly declares, "Flesh and blood cannot inherit

the kingdom of God." Therefore, we cannot interpret the word

"death" to mean merely the separation of the soul from its present

tabernacle, when he says, "By one man sin entered into the world,

and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men." On the other

extreme, the fully developed Pelagian the common Unitarian holds

that the word "death" is always used in the arguments of Paul in a

spiritual or figurative sense, merely meaning moral alienation

from God in guilt, misery, and despair. Undoubtedly it is used

thus in many instances, as when it is written, "I was alive

without the law once; but, when the commandment came, sin rose to

life, and I died." But in still more numerous cases it means

something more than the consciousness of sin and the resulting

wretchedness in the breast, and implies something external,

mechanical, visible, as it were. For example, "Since by man came

death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead." Any one who

reads the context of this sentence may see that the terms "death"

and "resurrection" antithetically balance each other, and refer

not to an inward experience, but to an outward event, not to a

moral change, but to the physical descent and resurrection. It is

certain that here the words are not employed in a moral sense. The

phraseology Paul uses in stating the connection of the sin of Adam

with death, the connection of the resurrection of Christ with

immortal life, is too peculiar, emphatic, and extensive not to be

loaded with

3 Planting and Training, Ryland's trans. p. 240.

a more general and vivid significance than the simple unhappiness

of a sense of guilt, the simple peace and joy of a reconciled

conscience. The advocates, then, of both theories the Calvinist

asserting that Paul supposed sin to be the only reason why we do

not live eternally in the world with our present organization, and

the Rationalist asserting that the apostle never employs the word

"death" except with a purely interior signification are alike

beset by insuperable difficulties, perplexed by passages which

defy their fair analysis and force them either to use a violent

interpretation or to confess their ignorance.

We must therefore seek out some third view, which, rejecting the

errors, shall combine the truths and supply the defects of the two

former. We have now to present such a view, a theory of the

Pauline doctrine of the last things which obviously explains and

fills out all the related language of the epistles. We suppose he

unfolded it fully in his preaching, while in his supplementary and

personal letters he only alludes to such disconnected parts of it

as then rose upon his thoughts. A systematic development of it as

a whole, with copious allusions and labored defences, was not

needed then, as it might seem to us to have been. For the

fundamental notions on which it rested were the common belief of

the nation and age. Geology and astronomy had not disturbed the

credit of a definitely located Hades and heaven, nor had free

metaphysics sharpened the common mind to skeptical queries. The

view itself, as we conceive it occupied the mind of Paul, is this.

Death was a part of the creative plan for us from the first,

simply loosing the spirit from its corruptible body, clothing it

with an ethereal vehicle, and immediately translating it to

heaven. Sin marred this plan, alienated us from the Divine favor,

introduced all misery, physical and moral, and doomed the soul,

upon the fall of its earthly house, to descend into the slumberous

gloom of the under world. Thus death was changed from a pleasant

organic fulfilment and deliverance, spiritual investiture and

heavenly ascent, to a painful punishment condemning the naked

ghost to a residence below the grave. As Ewald says, through

Adam's sin "death acquired its significance as pain and

punishment."4 Herein is the explanation of the word "death" as

used by Paul in reference to the consequence of Adam's offence.

Christ came to reveal the free grace and gift of God in redeeming

us from our doom and restoring our heavenly destiny. This he

exemplified, in accordance with the Father's will, by dying,

descending into the dreary world of the dead, vanquishing the

forces there, rising thence, and ascending to the right hand of

the throne of heaven as our forerunner. On the very verge of the

theory just stated as Paul's, Neander hovers in his exposition of

the apostle's views, but fails to grasp its theological scope and

consequences. Krabbe declares that "death did not arise from the

native perishableness of the body, but from sin."5 This statement

Neander controverts, maintaining that "sin introduced no essential

change in the physical organization of man, but merely in the

manner in which his earthly existence terminates. Had it not been

for sin, death would have been only the form of a higher

development of life."6 Exactly so. With innocence, the soul at

death

4 Sendschreiben des Apostels Paulus, s. 210.

5 Die Lehre von oer Sunde und vom Tode, cap. xi, s. 192.

6 Neander's Planting and Training, book vi. ch. 1.

would have ascended pleasantly, in a new body, to heaven; but sin

compelled it to descend painfully, without any body, to Hades. We

will cite a few of the principal texts from which this general

outline has been inferred and constructed.

The substance of the fifth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans

may be thus stated. As by the offence of one, sin entered into the

world, and the judgment of the law came upon all men in a sentence

of condemnation unto death, so by the righteousness of one, the

free gift of God came upon all men in a sentence of justification

unto life; that as sin, by Adam's offence, hath reigned unto

death, so grace, by Christ's righteousness, might reign unto

eternal life. Now, we maintain that the words "death" and "life"

cannot in the present instance be entirely explained, in a

spiritual sense, as signifying disturbance and woe in the breast,

or peace and bliss there, because the whole connected discourse is

not upon the internal contingent experience of individuals, but

upon the common necessity of the race, an objective sentence

passed upon humanity, followed by a public gift of reversal and

annulment. So, too, we deny that the words can be justly taken, in

their strictly literal sense, as meaning cessation or continuance

of physical existence on the earth, because, in the first place,

that would be inconsistent with the doctrine of a spiritual body

within the fleshly one and of a glorious inheritance reserved in

heaven, a doctrine by which Paul plainly shows that he recognised

a natural organic provision, irrespective of sin, for a change in

the form and locality of human existence. Secondly, we submit that

death and life here cannot mean departure from the body or

continuance in it, because that is a matter with which Christ's

mission did in no way interfere, but left exactly as it was

before; whereas, in the thing really meant by Paul, Christ is

represented as standing, at least partially, in the same relation

between life and men that Adam stands in between death and men.

The reply to the question, What is that relation? will at once

define the genuine signification of the terms "death" and "life"

in the instance under review. And thus it is to be answered. The

death brought on mankind by Adam was not only internal

wretchedness, but also the condemnation of the disembodied soul to

the under world; the life they were assured of by Christ was not

only internal blessedness, but also the deliverance of the soul

from its subterranean prison and its reception into heaven in a

"body celestial," according to its original destiny had sin not

befallen. This interpretation is explicitly put forth by Theodoret

in his comments on this same passage, (Rom. v. 15-18.) He says,

"There must be a correspondence between the disease and the

remedy. Adam's sin subjected him to the power of death and the

tyranny of the devil. In the same manner that Adam was compelled

to descend into the under world, we all are associates in his

fate. Thus, when Christ rose, the whole humankind partook in his

vivification."7 Origen also and who, after the apostles

themselves, knew their thoughts and their use of language better

than he? emphatically declares in exposition of the expression of

Paul, "the wages of sin is death" that "the

7 Impatib., dialogue iii. pp. 132, 133, ed. Sirmondi.

under world in which souls are detained is called death."8

"As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive."

These words cannot be explained, "As in Adam the necessity of

physical death came on all, so in Christ that necessity shall be

removed," because Christ's mission did not touch physical death,

which was still reigning as ever, before Paul's eyes. Neither can

the passage signify, "As through Adam wretchedness is the portion

of every heart of man, so through Christ blessedness shall be

given to every heart," because, while the language itself does not

hint that thought, the context demonstrates that the real

reference is not to an inward experience, but to an outward

event, not to the personal regeneration of the soul, but to a

general resurrection of the dead. The time referred to is the

second coming of Christ; and the force of the text must be this:

As by our bodily likeness to the first man and genetic connection

with him through sin we all die like him, that is, leave the body

and go into the under world, and remain there, so by our spiritual

likeness to the second man and redeeming connection with him

through the free grace of God we shall all rise thence like him,

revived and restored. Adam was the head of a condemned race,

doomed to Hades by the visible occurrence of death in lineal

descent from him; Christ is the head of a pardoned race, destined

for heaven in consonance with the plain token of his resurrection

and ascension. Again, the apostle writes, "In the twinkling of an

eye, at the last trump, the dead shall be raised incorruptible,

and we (who are then living) shall be changed; for this

corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal immortality.

Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, 'Death

is swallowed up in victory?" O Death, where is thy sting? O Hades,

where is thy victory?'" The writer evidently exults in the thought

that, at the second coming of Christ, death shall lose its

retributive character and the under world be baffled of its

expected prisoners, because the living shall instantly experience

the change of bodies fitting them to ascend to heaven with the

returning and triumphant Lord. Paul also announces that "Jesus

Christ hath abolished death and hath brought life and immortality

to light." The word "death" here cannot mean physical dissolution,

because Christ did not abolish that. It cannot denote personal sin

and unhappiness, because that would not correspond with and

sustain the obvious meaning of the contrasted member of the

sentence. Its adequate and consistent sense is this. God intended

that man should pass from a preliminary existence on earth to an

eternal life in heaven; but sin thwarted this glorious design and

altered our fate to a banishment into the cheerless under world.

But now, by the teachings and resurrection of Christ, we are

assured that God of his infinite goodness has determined freely to

forgive us and restore our original destination. Our descent and

abode below are abolished and our heavenly immortality made clear.

"We earnestly desire to be clothed upon with our house which is

from heaven, if so be that, being clothed, we shall not be found

naked. Not that we desire to be unclothed, but clothed upon, that

mortality may be swallowed up of life."

8 Comm. in Epist. ad Rom. lib. vi. cap. 6, sect. 6. Also see

Jerome, Comm. in Ecc. iii. 21. Professor Mau, in his able treatise

"Von dem Tode dem Solde der Sunden, and der Aufhebung desselben

durch die Auferstehung Christi," cogently argues, against Krabbe,

that death as the punishment of sin is not bodily dissolution, but

wretchedness and condemnation to the under world, (amandatio

Orcum.) In Pelt's Theologische Mitarbeiten, 1838, heft ii. ss.

107-108.

In these remarkable words the apostle expresses several particulars

of what we have already presented as his general doctrine. He

states his conviction that, when his "earthly house of this

tabernacle" dissolves, there is a "divinely constructed, heavenly,

and eternal house" prepared for him. He expresses his desire at

the coming of the Lord not to be dead, but still living, and then

to be divested of his earthly body and invested with the heavenly

body, that thus, being fitted for translation to the incorruptible

kingdom of God, he might not be found a naked shadow or ghost in

the under world. Ruckert says, in his commentary, and the best

critics agree with him, "Paul herein desires to become immortal

without passing the gates of death." Language similar to the

foregoing in its peculiar phrases is found in the Jewish Cabbala.

The Zohar describes the ascent of the soul to heaven clothed with

splendor, and afterwards illustrates its meaning in these terms:

"As there is given to the soul a garment with which she is clothed

in order to establish her in this world, so there is given her a

garment of heavenly splendor in order to establish her in that

world."9 So in the "Ascension of Isaiah the Prophet" an apocryphal

book written by some Jewish Christian as early, without doubt, as

the close of the second century the following passages occur.

Speaking of what was revealed to him in heaven, the prophet says,

"There I saw all the saints, from Adam, without the clothing of

the flesh: I viewed them in their heavenly clothing like the

angels who stood there in great splendor." Again he says, "All the

saints from heaven in their heavenly clothing shall descend with

the Lord and dwell in this world, while the saints who have not

died shall be clothed like those who come from heaven. Then the

general resurrection will take place and they will ascend together

to heaven."10 Schoettgen, commenting on this text, (2 Cor. v. 2, )

likewise quotes a large number of examples of like phraseology

from Rabbinical writers. The statements thus far made and proofs

offered will be amply illustrated and confirmed as we go on to

consider the chief component parts of the Pauline scheme of the

last things. For, having presented the general outline, it will be

useful, in treating so complex and difficult a theme, to analyze

it by details.

We are met upon the threshold of our inquiry by the essential

question, What, according to Paul, was the mission of Christ? What

did he accomplish? A clear reply to this question comprises three

distinct propositions. First, the apostle plainly represents the

resurrection, and not the crucifixion, as the efficacious feature

in Christ's work of redemption. When we recollect the almost

universal prevalence of the opposite notion among existing sects,

it is astonishing how clear it is that Paul generally dwells upon

the dying of Christ solely as the necessary preliminary to his

rising. "If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and

your faith also is vain: ye are yet in your sins." These words are

irreconcilable with that doctrine which connects our

"justification" with the atoning death, and not with the typical

resurrection, of Christ. "That Christ died for our sins, and that

he was buried, and that he rose again the third day." To place a

vicarious stress upon the first clause of this text is as

arbitrary as it would be to place it upon the second; but

naturally emphasize the third clause,

9 Laurence, Ascensio Isaia Vatis, appendix, p. 168.

10 Laurence, Ascensio Isaia atis, cap. 9, v. 7, 9; cap. 4.

and all is clear. The inferences and exhortations drawn from the

mission of Christ are not usually connected in any essential

manner with his painful death, but directly with his glorious

resurrection out from among the dead unto the heavenly

blessedness. "If we have been planted together in the likeness of

his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection."

Sinking into the water, when "buried by baptism into the death of

Christ," was, to those initiated into the Christian religion, a

symbol of the descent of Christ among the dead; rising out of the

water was a symbol of the ascent of Christ into heaven. "If ye

then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above,

where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God." When Paul cries,

exultingly, "Thanks be to God, who through Christ giveth us the

victory over the sting of death and the strength of sin," Jerome

says, "We cannot and dare not interpret this victory otherwise

than by the resurrection of the Lord."11 Commenting on the text

"To this end Christ both died and lived again, that he might reign

both over the dead and the living," Theodoret says that Christ,

going through all these events, "promised a resurrection to us

all." Paul makes no appeal to us to believe in the death of

Christ, to believe in the atoning sacrifice of Christ, but he

unequivocally affirms, "If thou shalt believe in thine heart that

God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." Paul

conceived that Christ died in order to rise again and convince men

that the Father would freely deliver them from the bondage of

death in the under world. All this took place on account of sin,

was only made requisite by sin, one of whose consequences was the

subterranean confinement of the soul, which otherwise, upon

deserting its clayey tent, would immediately have been clothed

with a spiritual body and have ascended to heaven. That is to say,

Christ "was delivered because of our offences and was raised again

because of our justification." In Romans viii. 10 the preposition

occurs twice in exactly the same construction as in the text

just quoted. In the latter case the authors of the common version

have rendered it "because of." They should have done so in the

other instance, in accordance with the natural force and

established usage of the word in this connection. The meaning is,

Our offences had been committed, therefore Christ was delivered

into Hades; our pardon had been decreed, therefore Christ was

raised into heaven. Such as we have now stated is the real

material which has been distorted and exaggerated into the

prevalent doctrine of the vicarious atonement, with all its dread

concomitants.12 The believers of that doctrine suppose themselves

obliged to accept it by the language of the epistles. But the view

above maintained as that of Paul solves every difficulty and gives

an intelligent and consistent meaning to all the phrases usually

thought to legitimate the Calvinistic scheme of redemption. While

we deny the correctness of the Calvinistic interpretation of those

passages in which occur such expressions as "Christ gave himself

for us," "died for our sins," we also affirm the inadequacy

11 Comm. in Osee, lib. iii. cap. 13.

12 Die Lehre von Christi Hollenfahrt nach der Heil. Schrift, der

altesten Kirche, den Christlichen Symbolen, und nach ihrer

unendlichen Wichtigkeit und vielumfassenden Bedeutung dargestellt,

von Joh. Ludwig Konig. The author presents in this work an

irresistible array of citations and authorities. In an appendix he

gives a list of a hundred authors on the theme of Christ's descent

into hell.

of the explanations of them proposed by Unitarians, and assert

that their genuine force is this. Christ died and rose that we

might be freed through faith from the great entailed consequence

of sin, the bondage of the under world; beholding, through his

ascension, our heavenly destination restored. "God made him, who

knew no sin, to be sin on our account, that we might become the

righteousness of God in him," might through faith in him be

assured of salvation. In other words, Christ, who was not exposed

to the evils brought on men by sin, did not think his divine

estate a thing eagerly to be retained, but descended to the estate

of man, underwent the penalties of sin as if he were himself a

sinner, and then rose to the right hand of God, by this token to

assure men of God's gracious determination to forgive them and

reinstate them in their forfeited primal privileges. "If we be

reconciled by his death, much more shall we be saved by his life."

That is, if Christ's coming from heaven as an ambassador from God

to die convinces us of God's pardoning good will towards us, much

more does his rising again into heaven, where he now lives,

deliver us from the fear of the under world condemnation and

assure us of the heavenly salvation. Except in the light and with

the aid of the theory we have been urging, a large number of texts

like the foregoing cannot, as we think, be interpreted without

constructive violence, and even with that violence cannot convey

their full point and power.

Secondly, in Paul's doctrine of the redeeming work of Christ we

recognise something distinct from any subjective effect in

animating and purifying the hearts and lives of men. "Christ hath

redeemed us from the curse of the law." "In Christ we have

redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins."

Nothing but the most desperate exegesis can make these and many

similar texts signify simply the purging of individual breasts

from their offences and guilt. Seeking the genuine meaning of

Paul, we are forced to agree with the overwhelming majority of the

critics and believers of all Christendom, from the very times of

the apostles till now, and declare that these passages refer to an

outward deliverance of men by Christ, the removal by him of a

common doom resting on the race in consequence of sin. What Paul

supposed that doom was, and how he thought it was removed, let us

try to see. It is necessary to premise that in Paul's writings the

phrase "the righteousness of God" is often used by metonymy to

mean God's mode of accounting sinners righteous, and is equivalent

to "the Christian method of salvation." "By the deeds of the law

no flesh shall be justified; but the righteousness of God without

the law is manifested, freely justifying them through the

redemption that is in Christ." How evidently in this verse "the

righteousness of God" denotes God's method of justifying the

guilty by a free pardon proclaimed through Christ! The apostle

employs the word "faith" in a kindred technical manner, sometimes

meaning by it "promise," sometimes the whole evangelic apparatus

used to establish faith or prove the realization of the promise.

"What if some did not believe? Shall their unbelief make the faith

of God without effect?" Evidently by "faith" is intended "promise"

or "purpose." "Is the law against the promises of God? God forbid!

But before faith came we were kept under the law, shut up unto the

faith which should afterwards be revealed." Here "faith" plainly

means the object of faith, the manifested fulfilment of the

promises: it means the gospel. Again, "Whereof he hath offered

faith to all, in that he hath raised him from the dead." "Hath

offered faith" here signifies, unquestionably, as the common

version well expresses it, "hath given assurance," or hath

exemplified the proof. "Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to

bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But

after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster."

In this instance "faith" certainly means Christianity, in

contradistinction to Judaism, and "justification by faith" is

equivalent to "salvation by the grace of God, shown through the

mission of Christ." It is not so much internal and individual in

its reference as it is public and general. We believe that no man,

sacredly resolved to admit the truth, can study with a purposed

reference to this point all the passages in Paul's epistles where

the word "faith" occurs, without being convinced that for the most

part it is used in an objective sense, in contradistinction to the

law, as synonymous with the gospel, the new dispensation of grace.

Therefore "justification by faith" does not usually mean salvation

through personal belief, either in the merits of the Redeemer or

in any thing else, but it means salvation by the plan revealed in

the gospel, the free remission of sins by the forbearance of God.

In those instances where "faith" is used in a subjective sense for

personal belief, it is never described as the effectual cause of

salvation, but as the condition of personal assurance of

salvation. Grace has outwardly come to all; but only the believers

inwardly know it. This Pauline use of terms in technical senses

lies broadly on the face of the Epistles to the Romans and the

Galatians. New Testament lexicons and commentaries, by the best

scholars of every denomination, acknowledge it and illustrate it.

Mark now these texts. "And by him all that believe are justified

from all things from which ye could not be justified by the law of

Moses." "To declare his righteousness, that he might be just and

the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus." "What things were

gain to me [under Judaism] I counted loss in comparison with

Christ, that I may be found in him, not having mine own

righteousness, which is of the law, but the righteousness which is

of God through faith in Christ." "By the deeds of the law no man

can be justified," "but ye are saved through faith." We submit

that these passages, and many others in the epistles, find a

perfect explanation in the following outline of faith, commenced

in the mind of Paul while he was a Pharisee, completed when he was

a Christian. The righteousness of the law, the method of salvation

by keeping the law, is impossible. The sin of the first man broke

that whole plan and doomed all souls helplessly to the under

world. If a man now should keep every tittle of the law without

reservation, it would not release him from the bondage below and

secure for him an ascent to heaven. But what the law could not do

is done for us in Christ. Sin having destroyed the righteousness

of the law, that is, the fatal penalty of Hades having rendered

salvation by the law impossible, the righteousness of God, that

is, a new method of salvation, has been brought to light. God has

sent his Son to die, descend into the under world, rise again, and

return to heaven, to proclaim to men the glorious tidings of

justification by faith, that is, a dispensation of grace freely

annulling the great consequence of sin and inviting them to heaven

in the Redeemer's footsteps. Paul unequivocally declares that

Christ broke up the bondage of the under world by his irresistible

entrance and exit, in the following text: "When he had descended

first into the lower parts of the earth, he ascended up on high,

leading a multitude of captives." What can be plainer than that?

The same thought is also contained in another passage, a passage

which was the source of those tremendous pictures so frequent in

the cathedrals of the Middle Age, Christus spoliat Infernum: "God

hath forgiven you all trespasses, blotting out the handwriting of

ordinances that was against us, and took it away, nailing it to

Christ's cross; and, having spoiled principalities and powers, he

made a show of them, openly triumphing over them in Christ." The

entire theory which underlies the exposition we have just set

forth is stated in so many words in the passage we next cite. For

the word "righteousness" in order to make the meaning more

perspicuous we simply substitute "method of salvation," which is

unquestionably its signification here. "They [the Jews] being

ignorant of God's method of salvation, and going about to

establish their own method, have not submitted themselves unto

God's. For Christ is the end of the law for a way of salvation to

every one that believeth. For Moses describeth the method of

salvation which is of the law, that the man who doeth these things

shall be blessed in them. But the method of salvation which is of

faith ["faith" here means the gospel, Christianity] speaketh on

this wise: Say not in thy heart, 'Who shall ascend into heaven?'

that is, to bring Christ down; or, 'Who shall descend into the

under world?' that is, to bring up Christ again from among the

dead." This has been done already, once for all. "And if thou

shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the

dead, thou shalt be saved." The apostle avows that his "heart's

desire and his prayer unto God for Israel is, that they may be

saved;" and he asserts that they cannot be saved by the law of

Moses, but only by the gospel of Christ; that is, "faith;" that

is, "the dispensation of grace."

Paul's conception of the foremost feature in Christ's mission is

precisely this. He came to deliver men from the stern law of

Judaism, which could not wipe away their transgressions nor save

them from Hades, and to establish them in the free grace of

Christianity, which justifies them from all past sin and seals

them for heaven. What could be a more explicit declaration of this

than the following? "When the fulness of the time was come, God

sent forth his Son to redeem them that were under the law." Herein

is the explanation of that perilous combat which Paul waged so

many years, and in which he proved victorious, the great battle

between the Gentile Christians and the Judaizing Christians; a

subject of altogether singular importance, without a minute

acquaintance with which a large part of the New Testament cannot

be understood. "Christ gave himself for our sins, that he might

deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of

God." Now, the Hebrew terms corresponding with the English terms

"present world" and "future world" were used by the Jews to denote

the Mosaic and the Messianic dispensations. We believe with

Schoettgen and other good authorities that such is the sense of

the phrase "present world" in the instance before us. Not only is

that interpretation sustained by the usus loquendi, it is also the

only defensible meaning; for the effect of the establishment of

the gospel was not to deliver men from the present world, though

it did deliver them from the hopeless bondage of Judaism, wherein

salvation was by Christians considered impossible. And that is

precisely the argument of the Epistle to the Galatians, in which

the text occurs. In a succeeding chapter, while speaking expressly

of the external forms of the Jewish law, Paul says, "By the cross

of Christ the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world;"

and he instantly adds, by way of explanation, "for in Christ Jesus

neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision."

Undeniably, "world" here means "Judaism;" as Rosenmuller phrases

it, Judaica vanitas. In another epistle, while expostulating with

his readers on the folly of subjecting themselves to observances

"in meat and drink, and new moons and sabbaths," after "the

handwriting of ordinances that was against them had been blotted

out, taken away, nailed to the cross," Paul remonstrates with them

in these words: "Wherefore, if ye be dead with Christ from the

rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye

subject to ordinances?" We should suppose that no intelligent

person could question that this means, "Now that by the gospel of

Christ ye are emancipated from the technical requisitions of

Judaism, why are ye subject to its ordinances, as if ye were still

living under its rule?" as many of the best commentators agree in

saying, "tanquam viventes adhuc in Judaismo." From these

collective passages, and from others like them, we draw the

conclusion, in Paul's own words, that, "When we were children, we

were in bondage under the rudiments of the world," "the weak and

beggarly elements" of Judaism; but, now that "the fulness of the

time has come, and God has sent forth his Son to redeem us," we

are called "to receive the adoption of sons" and "become heirs of

God," inheritors of a heavenly destiny.

We think that the intelligent and candid reader, who is familiar

with Paul's epistles, will recognise the following features in his

belief and teaching. First, all mankind alike were under sin and

condemnation. "Jews and Gentiles all are under sin." "All the

world is subject to the sentence of God." And we maintain that

that condemning sentence consisted, partly at least, in the

banishment of their disembodied souls to Hades. Secondly, "a

promise was given to Abraham," before the introduction of the

Mosaic dispensation, "that in his seed [that is, in Christ] all

the nations of the earth should be blessed." When Paul speaks, as

he does in numerous instances, of "the hope of eternal life which

God, who cannot lie, promised before the world began," "the

promise given before the foundation of the world," "the promise

made of God unto the fathers, that God would raise the dead," the

date referred to is not when the decree was formed in the eternal

counsels of God, previous to the origin of the earth, but when the

covenant was made with Abraham, before the establishment of the

Jewish dispensation. The thing promised plainly was, according to

Paul's idea, a redemption from Hades and an ascension to heaven;

for this is fully implied in his "expectation of the resurrection

of the dead" from the intermediate state, and their being "clothed

in celestial bodies." This promise made unto Abraham by God, to be

fulfilled by Christ, "the law, which was four hundred and thirty

years afterwards, could not disannul." That is, as any one may see

by the context, the law could not secure the inheritance of the

thing promised, but was only a temporary arrangement on account of

transgressions, "until the seed should come to whom the promise

was made." In other words, there was "no mode of salvation by the

law;" "the law could not give life;" for if it could it would have

"superseded the promise," made it without effect, whereas the

inviolable promise of God was, that in the one seed of Abraham

that is, in Christ alone should salvation be preached to all that

believed. "For if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is

made useless, and the promise is made useless." In the mean time,

until Christ be come, all are shut up under sin. Thirdly, the

special "advantage of the Jews was, that unto them this promise of

God was committed," as the chosen covenant people.