IN approaching the teachings of the Savior himself concerning the

future fate of man, we should throw off the weight of creeds and

prejudices, and, by the aid of all the appliances in our power,

endeavor to reach beneath the imagery and unessential particulars

of his instructions to learn their bare significance in truth.

This is made difficult by the singular perversions his religion

has undergone; by the loss of a complete knowledge of the

peculiarities of the Messianic age in the lapse of the ages since;

by the almost universal change in our associations, modes of

feeling and thought, and styles of speech; and by the gradual

accretion and hardening of false doctrines and sectarian biases

and wilfulness. As we examine the words of Christ to find their

real meaning, there are four prominent considerations to be

especially weighed and borne in mind.

First, we must not forget the poetic Eastern style common to the

Jewish prophets; their symbolic enunciations in bold figures of

speech: "I am the door;" "I am the bread of life;" "I am the

vine;" "My sheep hear my voice;" "If these should hold their

peace, the stones would immediately cry out." This daring

emblematic language was natural to the Oriental nations; and the

Bible is full of it. Is the overthrow of a country foretold? It is

not said, "Babylon shall be destroyed," but "The sun shall be

darkened at his going forth, the moon shall be as blood, the stars

shall fall from heaven, and the earth shall stagger to and fro as

a drunken man." If we would truly understand Christ's

declarations, we must not overlook the characteristics of

figurative language. For "he spake to the multitude in parables,

and without a parable spake he not unto them;" and a parable, of

course, is not to be taken literally, but holds a latent sense and

purpose which are to be sought out. The greatest injustice is done

to the teachings of Christ when his words are studied as those of

a dry scholastic, a metaphysical moralist, not as those of a

profound poet, a master in the spiritual realm.

Secondly, we must remember that we have but fragmentary reports of

a small part of the teachings of Christ. He was engaged in the

active prosecution of his mission probably about three years, at

the shortest over one year; while all the different words of his

recorded in the New Testament would not occupy more than five

hours. Only a little fraction of what he said has been transmitted

to us; and though this part may contain the essence of the whole,

yet it must naturally in some instances be obscure and difficult

of apprehension. We must therefore compare different passages with

each other, carefully probe them all, and explain, so far as

possible, those whose meaning is recondite by those whose meaning

is obvious. Some persons may be surprised to think that we have

but a small portion of the sayings of Jesus. The fact, however, is

unquestionable. And perhaps there is no more reason that we should

have a full report of his words than there is that we should have

a complete account of his doings; and the evangelist declares,

"There are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if

they should every one be written, I suppose that even the world

itself could not contain the books."

Thirdly, when examining the instructions of Jesus, we should

recollect that he adopted, and applied to himself and to his

kingdom, the common Jewish phraseology concerning the Messiah and

the events that were expected to attend his advent and reign. But

he did not take up these phrases in the perverted sense held in

the corrupt opinions and earthly hopes of the Jews: he used them

spiritually, in the sense which accorded with the true Messianic

dispensation as it was arranged in the forecasting providence of

God. No investigation of the New Testament should be unaccompanied

by an observance of the fundamental rule of interpretation,

namely, that the strident of a book, especially of an ancient,

obscure, and fragmentary book, should imbue himself as thoroughly

as he can with the knowledge and spirit of the opinions, events,

influences, circumstances, of the time when the document was

written, and of the persons who wrote it. The inquirer must be

equipped for his task by a mastery of the Rabbinism of Gamaliel,

at whose feet Paul was brought up; for the Jewish mind of that age

was filled, and its religious language directed, by this

Rabbinism. Guided by this principle, furnished with the necessary

information, in the helpful light of the best results of modern

critical scholarship, we shall be able to explain many dark texts,

and to satisfy ourselves, at least in a degree, as to the genuine

substance of Christ's declarations touching the future destinies

of men.

Finally, he who studies the New Testament with patient

thoroughness and with honest sharpness will arrive at a

distinction most important to be made and to be kept in view,

namely, a distinction between the real meaning of Christ's words

in his own mind and the actual meaning understood in them by his

auditors and reporters.1 Here we approach a most delicate and

vital point, hitherto too little noticed, but destined yet to

become prominent and fruitful. A large number of religious phrases

were in common use among the Jews at the time of Jesus. He adopted

them, but infused into them a deeper, a correct meaning, as

Copernicus did into the old astronomic formulas. But the

bystanders who listened to his discourses, hearing the familiar

terms, seized the familiar meaning, and erroneously attributed it

to him. It is certain that the Savior was often misunderstood and

often not understood at all. When he declared himself the Messiah,

the people would have made him a king by force! Even the apostles

frequently grossly failed to appreciate his spirit and aims,

wrenched unwarrantable inferences from his words, and quarrelled

for the precedency in his coming kingdom and for seats at his

right hand. In numerous cases it is glaringly plain that his ideas

were far from their conceptions of them. We have no doubt the same

was true in many other instances where it is not so clear. He

repeatedly reproves them for folly and slowness because they did

not perceive the sense of his instructions. Perhaps there was a

slight impatience in his tones when he said, "How is it that ye do

not understand that I spake it not to you concerning bread, that

ye should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the

Sadducees?" Jesus uttered in established phrases new and

profoundly spiritual thoughts. The apostles educated in, and full

of, as they evidently were, the dogmas, prejudices, and

1 See this distinction affirmed by De Wette, in the preface to his

Commentatio de Morte Jesus Christi Expiatoria. See also Thurn,

Jesus und seine Apostel in Widerspruch in Ansehung der Lehre von

der Ewigcn Verdamnniss. In Scherer's Schriftforsch. sect. i. nr.

4.

hopes of their age and land would naturally, to some extent,

misapprehend his meaning. Then, after a tumultuous interval,

writing out his instructions from memory, how perfectly natural

that their own convictions and sentiments would have a powerful

influence in modifying and shaping the animus and the verbal

expressions in their reports! Under the circumstances, that we

should now possess the very equivalents of his words with strict

literalness, and conveying his very intentions perfectly

translated from the Aramaan into the Greek tongue, would imply the

most sustained and amazing of all miracles. There is nothing

whatever that indicates any such miraculous intervention. There is

nothing to discredit the fair presumption that the writers were

left to their own abilities, under the inspiration of an earnest

consecrating love and truthfulness. And we must, with due

limitations, distinguish between the original words and conscious

meaning of the sublime Master, illustrated by the emphasis and

discrimination of his looks, tones, and gestures, and the

apprehended meaning recorded long afterwards, shaped and colored

by passing through the minds and pens of the sometimes dissentient

and always imperfect disciples. He once declared to them, "I have

many things to say unto you, but ye are not able to bear them."

Admitting his infallibility, as we may, yet asserting their

fallibility, as we must, and accompanied, too, as his words now

are by many very obscuring circumstances, it is extremely

difficult to lay the hand on discriminated texts and say,

"[non ASCII characters]"

The Messianic doctrine prevalent among the Jews in the time of

Jesus appears to have been built up little by little, by religious

faith, national pride, and priestly desire, out of literal

interpretations of figurative prophecy, and Cabalistic

interpretations of plain language, and Rabbinical traditions and

speculations, additionally corrupted in some particulars by

intercourse with the Persians. Under all this was a central

spiritual germ of a Divine promise and plan. A Messiah was really

to come. It was in answering the questions, what kind of a king he

was to be, and over what sort of a kingdom he was to reign, that

the errors crept in. The Messianic conceptions which have come

down to us through the Prophets, the Targums, incidental allusions

in the New Testament, the Talmud, and the few other traditions and

records yet in existence, are very diverse and sometimes

contradictory. They agreed in ardently looking for an earthly

sovereign in the Messiah, one who would rise up in the line of

David and by the power of Jehovah deliver his people, punish their

enemies, subdue the world to his sceptre, and reign with Divine

auspices of beneficence and splendor. They also expected that then

a portion of the dead would rise from the under world and assume

their bodies again, to participate in the triumphs and blessings

of his earthly kingdom. His personal reign in Judea was what they

usually meant by the phrases "the kingdom of heaven," "the kingdom

of God." The apostles cherished these ideas, and expressed them in

the terms common to their countrymen. But we cannot doubt that

Jesus employed this and kindred language in a purer and deeper

sense, which we must take pains to distinguish from the early and

lingering errors associated with it.

Upon the threshold of our subject we meet with predictions of a

second coming of Christ from heaven, with power and glory, to sit

on his throne and judge the world. The portentous imagery in which

these prophecies are clothed is taken from the old prophets; and

to them

we must turn to learn its usage and force. The Hebrews called any

signal manifestation of power especially any dreadful calamity a

coming of the Lord. It was a coming of Jehovah when his vengeance

strewed the ground with the corpses of Sennacherib's host; when

its storm swept Jerusalem as with fire, and bore Israel into

bondage; when its sword came down upon Idumea and was bathed in

blood upon Edom. "The day of the Lord" is another term of

precisely similar import. It occurs in the Old Testament about

fifteen times. In every instance it means some mighty

manifestation of God's power in calamity. These occasions are

pictured forth with the most astounding figures of speech. Isaiah

describes the approaching destruction of Babylon in these terms:

"The stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall give no

light; the sun shall be darkened, the moon shall not shine, the

heavens shall shake, and the earth shall remove out of her place

and be as a frightened sheep that no man taketh up." The Jews

expected that the coming of the Messiah would be preceded by many

fearful woes, in the midst of which he would appear with peerless

pomp and might. The day of his coming they named emphatically the

day of the Lord. Jesus actually appeared, not, as they expected, a

warrior travelling in the greatness of his strength, with dyed

garments from Bozrah, staining his raiment with blood as he

trampled in the wine vat of vengeance, but the true Messiah, God's

foreordained and anointed Son, despised and rejected of men,

bringing good tidings, publishing peace. It must have been

impossible for the Jews to receive such a Messiah without

explanations. Those few who became converts apprehended his

Messianic language, at least to some extent, in the sense which

previously occupied their minds. He knew that often he was not

understood; and he frequently said to his followers, "Who hath

ears to hear, let him hear." His disciples once asked him, "What

shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?" He

replied, substantially, "There shall be wars, famines, and

unheard of trials; and immediately after the sun shall be

darkened, the moon shall not give her light, the stars shall fall

from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken. Then

shall they see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with

great power. And he shall sit upon the throne of his glory, and

all nations shall be gathered before him, and he shall separate

them one from another." That this language was understood by the

evangelists and the early Christians, in accordance with their

Pharisaic notions, as teaching literally a physical reappearance

of Christ on the earth, a resurrection, and a general judgment, we

fully believe. Those ideas were prevalent at the time, are

expressed in scores of places in the New Testament, and are the

direct strong assertion of the words themselves. But that such was

the meaning of Christ himself we much more than doubt.

In the first place, in his own language in regard to his second

coming there is not the least hint of a resurrection of the dead:

the scene is confined to the living, and to the earth. Secondly,

the figures which he employs in this connection are the same as

those used by the Jewish prophets to denote great and signal

events on the earth, and may be so taken here without violence to

the idiom. Thirdly, he expressly fixed the date of the events he

referred to within that generation; and if, therefore, he spoke

literally, he was grossly in error, and his prophecies failed of

fulfilment, a conclusion which we cannot adopt. To suppose that he

partook in the false, mechanical dogmas of the carnal Jews would

be equally irreconcilable with the common idea of his Divine

inspiration, and with the profound penetration and spirituality

of his own mind.

He certainly used much of the phraseology of his contemporary

countrymen, metaphorically, to convey his own purer thoughts. We

have no doubt he did so in regard to the descriptions of his

second coming. Let us state in a form of paraphrase what his real

instructions on this point seem to us to have been: "You cannot

believe that I am the Messiah, because I do not deliver you from

your oppressors and trample on the Gentiles. Your minds are

clouded with errors. The Father hath sent me to found the kingdom

of peace and righteousness, and hath given me all power to reward

and punish. By my word shall the nations of the earth be honored

and blessed, or be overwhelmed with fire; and every man must stand

before my judgment seat. The end of the world is at the doors. The

Mosaic dispensation is about to be closed in the fearful

tribulations of the day of the Lord, and my dispensation to be set

up. When you see Jerusalem encompassed with armies, know that the

day is at hand, and flee to the mountains; for not one stone shall

be left upon another. Then the power of God will be shown on my

behalf, and the sign of the Son of Man be seen in heaven. My

truths shall prevail, and shall be owned as the criteria of Divine

judgment. According to them, all the righteous shall be

distinguished as my subjects, and all the iniquitous shall be

separated from my kingdom. Some of those standing here shall not

taste death till all these things be fulfilled. Then it will be

seen that I am the Messiah, and that through the eternal

principles of truth which I have proclaimed I shall sit upon a

throne of glory, not literally, in person, as you thought,

blessing the Jews and cursing the Gentiles, but spiritually, in

the truth, dispensing joy to good men and woe to bad men,

according to their deserts." Such we believe to be the meaning of

Christ's own predictions of his second coming. He figuratively

identifies himself with his religion according to that idiom by

which it is written, "Moses hath in every city them that read him,

being read in the synagogues every Sabbath day." His figure of

himself as the universal judge is a bold personification; for he

elsewhere says, "He that believeth in me believeth not in me, but

in Him that sent me." And again, "He that rejecteth me, I judge

him not: the word that I have spoken, that shall judge him." His

coming in the clouds of heaven with great power and glory was

when, at the destruction of Jerusalem, the old age closed and the

new began, the obstacles to his religion were removed and his

throne established on the earth.2 The apostles undoubtedly

understood the doctrine differently; but that such was his own

thought we conclude, because he did sometimes undeniably use

figurative language in that way, and because the other meaning is

an error, not in harmony either with his character, his mind, or

his mission.

This interpretation is so important that it may need to be

illustrated and confirmed by further instances: "When the Son of

Man sits on the throne of his glory, and all nations are gathered

before him, his angels shall sever the wicked from among the just,

and shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be weeping

and gnashing of teeth." A few such picturesque phrases have led to

the general belief in a great world judgment at the end of the

2 Norton, Statement of Reasons, Appendix.

appointed time, after which the condemned are to be thrown into

the tortures of an unquenchable world of flame. How arbitrary and

violent a conclusion this is, how unwarranted and gross a

perversion of the language of Christ it is, we may easily see. The

fact that the old prophets often described fearful misfortunes and

woes in images of clouds and flame and falling stars, and other

portentous symbols, and that this style was therefore familiar to

the Jews, would make it very natural for Jesus, in foretelling

such an event as the coming destruction of Jerusalem, in

conflagration and massacre, with the irretrievable subversion of

the old dispensation, to picture it forth in a similar way. Fire

was to the Jews a common emblem of calamity and devastation; and

judgments incomparably less momentous than those gathered about

the fall of Jerusalem and the dispersion of the self boasted

favorites of Jehovah were often described by the prophets in

appalling images of darkened planets, shaking heavens, clouds,

fire, and blackness. Joel, speaking of a "day of the Lord," when

there should be famine and drought, and a horrid army of

destroying insects, "before whom a fire devoureth, and behind them

a flame burneth," draws the scene in these terrific colors: "The

earth shall quake before them; the sun and moon shall be dark, and

the stars shall withdraw their shining; and the Lord shall utter

his voice before his terrible army of locusts, caterpillars, and

destroying worms:" Ezekiel represents God as saying, "The house of

Israel is to me become dross: therefore I will gather you into the

midst of Jerusalem: as they gather silver, brass, iron, tin, and

lead into the midst of the furnace to blow the fire upon it, so

will I gather you, and blow upon you in the fire of my wrath, and

ye shall be melted in the midst thereof." We read in Isaiah, "The

Assyrian shall flee, and his princes shall be afraid, saith the

Lord, whose fire is in Zion and his furnace in Jerusalem." Malachi

also says, "The day cometh that shall burn as a furnace, and all

that do wickedly shall be stubble, and shall be burned up root and

branch. They shall be trodden as ashes beneath the feet of the

righteous." The meaning of these passages, and of many other

similar ones, is, in every instance, some severe temporal

calamity, some dire example of Jehovah's retributions among the

nations of the earth. Their authors never dreamed of teaching that

there is a place of fire beyond the grave in which the wicked dead

shall be tormented, or that the natural creation is finally to be

devoured by flame. It is perfectly certain that not a single text

in the Old Testament was meant to teach any such doctrine as that.

The judgments shadowed forth in kindred metaphors by Christ are to

be understood in the light of this fact. Their meaning is, that

all unjust, cruel, false, impure men shall endure severe

punishments. This general thought is fearfully distinct; but every

thing beyond all details are left in utter obscurity.

In the august scene of the King in judgment, when the sentence has

been pronounced on those at the left hand, "Depart from me, ye

cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his

angels," it is written, "and they shall go away into everlasting

punishment." It is obvious to remark that the imagery of a fiery

prison built for Satan and the fallen angels, and into which the

bad shall be finally doomed, is poetical language, or language of

accommodation to the current notions of the time. These startling

Oriental figures are used to wrap and convey the assertion that

the wicked shall be severely punished according to their deserts.

No literal reference seems to be made either to the particular

time, to the

special place, or to the distinctive character, of the punishment;

but the mere fact is stated in a manner to fill the conscience

with awe and to stamp the practical lesson vividly on the memory.

But admitting the clauses apparently descriptive of the nature of

this retribution to be metaphorical, yet what shall we think of

its duration? Is it absolutely unending? There is nothing in the

record to enable a candid inquirer to answer that question

decisively. So far as the letter of Scripture is concerned, there

are no data to give an indubitable solution to the problem. It is

true the word "everlasting" is repeated; but, when impartially

weighed, it seems a sudden rhetorical expression, of indefinite

force, used to heighten the impressiveness of a sublime dramatic

representation, rather than a cautious philosophical term employed

to convey an abstract conception. There is no reason whatever for

supposing that Christ's mind was particularly directed to the

metaphysical idea of endlessness, or to the much more metaphysical

idea of timelessness. The presumptive evidence is that he spoke

popularly. Had he been charged to reveal a doctrine so tremendous,

so awful, so unutterably momentous in its practical relations, as

that of the endless close of all probation at death, is it

conceivable that he would merely have couched it in a few

figurative expressions and left it as a matter of obscure

inference and uncertainty? No: in that case, he would have

iterated and reiterated it, defined, guarded, illustrated it, and

have left no possibility of honest mistake or doubt of it.

The Greek word [non-ASCII characters], and the same is true of the

corresponding Hebrew word, translated "everlasting" in the English

Bible, has not in its popular usage the rigid force of eternal

duration, but varies, is now applied to objects as evanescent as

man's earthly life, now to objects as lasting as eternity.3

Its power in any given case is to be sought from the context and

the reason of the thing.

Isaiah, having threatened the unrighteous nations that they

"should conceive chaff and bring forth stubble, that their own

breath should be fire to devour them, and that they should be

burnt like lime, like thorns cut up in the fire," makes the

terror smitten sinners and hypocrites cry, "Who among us can dwell

in devouring fire? Who among us can dwell in everlasting

burnings?" Yet his reference is solely to an outward, temporal

judgment in this world. The Greek adjective rendered "everlasting"

is etymologically, and by universal usage, a term of duration, but

indefinite, its extent of meaning depending on the subjects of

which it is predicated. Therefore, when Christ connects this word

with the punishment of the wicked, it is impossible to say with

any certainty, judging from the language itself, whether he

implies that those who die in their sins are hopelessly lost,

perfectly irredeemable forever, or not, though the probabilities

are very strongly in the latter direction. "Everlasting

punishment" may mean, in philosophical strictness, a punishment

absolutely eternal, or may be a popular expression denoting, with

general indefiniteness, a very long duration. Since in all Greek

literature, sacred and profane, [non-ASCII characters] is applied

to things that end, ten times as often as it is to things immortal,

no fair critic can assert positively that when it is connected

with future punishment it has the stringent meaning of

metaphysical endlessness. On the other hand, no one has any

critical

3 See Christian Examiner for March, 1854, pp. 280-297.

right to say positively that in such cases it has not that

meaning. The Master has not explained his words on this point, but

has left them veiled. We can settle the question itself concerning

the limitedness or the unlimitedness of future punishment only on

other grounds than those of textual criticism, even on grounds of

enlightened reason postulating the cardinal principles of

Christianity and of ethics. Will not the unimpeded Spirit of

Christ lead all free minds and loving hearts to one conclusion?

But that conclusion is to be held modestly as a trusted inference,

not dogmatically as a received revelation.

Another point in the Savior's teachings which it is of the utmost

importance to understand is the sense in which he used the Jewish

phrases "Resurrection of the Dead" and "Resurrection at the Last

Day." The Pharisees looked for a restoration of the righteous from

their graves to a bodily life. This event they supposed would take

place at the appearance of the Messiah; and the time of his coming

they called "the last day." So the Apostle John says, "Already are

there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time."

Now, Jesus claimed to be the Messiah, clothed in his functions,

though he interpreted those functions as carrying an interior and

moral, not an outward and physical, force. "This is the will of

Him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son and believeth

on him should have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at

the last day." Again, when Martha told Jesus that "she knew her

brother Lazarus would rise again in the resurrection at the last

day," he replied, "I am the resurrection and the life: he that

believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and

whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die." This

utterance is surely metaphorical; for belief in Jesus does not

prevent physical dissolution. The thoughts contained in the

various passages belonging to this subject, when drawn out,

compared, and stated in general terms, seem to us to be as

follows: "You suppose that in the last day your Messiah will

restore the dead to live again upon the earth. I am the Messiah,

and the last days have therefore arrived. I am commissioned by the

Father to bestow eternal life upon all who believe on me; but not

in the manner you have anticipated. The true resurrection is not

calling the body from the tomb, but opening the fountains of

eternal life in the soul. I am come to open the spiritual world to

your faith. He that believeth in me and keepeth my commandments

has passed from death unto life, become conscious that though

seemingly he passes into the grave, yet really he shall live with

God forever. The true resurrection is, to come into the experience

of the truth that 'God is not the God of the dead, but of the

living; for all live unto him.' Over the soul that is filled with

such an experience, death has no power. Verily, I say unto, you,

the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead, the ignorant and

guilty, buried in trespasses and sins, shall hear these truths

declared, and they that believe shall lay hold of the life thus

offered and be blessed. The Father hath given me authority to

execute judgment, that is, to lay down the principles by which men

shall be judged according to their deserts. All mankind shall be

judged in the spiritual state by the spirit and precepts of my

religion as veritably as if in their graves the generations of the

dead heard my voice and came forth, the good to blessedness, the

evil to misery. The judgment which is, as it were, committed unto

me, is not really committed unto me, but unto the truth which I

declare; for of mine own self I can do nothing." We believe this

paraphrase expresses the essential meaning of Christ's own

declarations concerning a resurrection and an associated judgment.

Coming to bring from the Father authenticated tidings of

immortality, and to reveal the laws of the Divine judgment,

he declared that those who believed and kept his words were

delivered from the terror of death, and, knowing that an endless

life of blessedness was awaiting them, immediately entered upon

its experience. He did not teach the doctrine of a bodily

restoration, but said, "In the resurrection," that is, in the

spiritual state succeeding death, "they neither marry nor are

given in marriage, but are as the angels of heaven."

He did not teach the doctrine of a temporary sleep in the grave,

but said to the penitent thief on the cross, "This day shalt thou

be with me in Paradise:" instantly upon leaving the body their

souls would be together in the state of the blessed.

It is often said that the words of Jesus in relation to the dead

hearing his voice and coming forth must be taken literally; for

the metaphor is of too extreme violence. But it is in keeping with

his usage. He says, "Let the dead bury their dead." It is far less

bold than "This is my body; this is my blood." It is not nearly so

strong as Paul's adjuration, "Awake, thou that sleepest, and rise

from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." It is not more

daringly imaginative than the assertion that "the heroes sleeping

in Marathon's gory bed stirred in their graves when Leonidas

fought at Thermopyla; or than Christ's own words, "If thou hadst

faith like a grain of mustard seed, thou couldst say to this

mountain, Be thou cast into yonder sea, and it should obey you."

So one might say,

"Where'er the gospel comes,

It spreads diviner light;

It calls dead sinners from their tombs

And gives the blind their sight."

And in the latter days, when it has done its work, and the

glorious measure of human redemption is full, liberty,

intelligence, and love shall stand hand in hand on the mountain

summits and raise up the long generations of the dead to behold

the completed fruits of their toils. In this figurative moral

sense Jesus probably spoke when he said, "Thou shalt be

recompensed at the resurrection of the just." He referred simply

to the rewards of the virtuous in the state beyond the grave. The

phraseology in which he clothed the thought he accommodatingly

adopted from the current speech of the Pharisees. They

unquestionably meant by it the group of notions contained in their

dogma of the destined physical restoration of the dead from their

sepulchres at the advent of the Messiah. And it seems perfectly

plain to us, on an impartial study of the record, that the

evangelist, in reporting his words, took the Pharisaic dogma, and

not merely the Christian truth, with them. But that Jesus himself

modified and spiritualized the meaning of the phrase when he

employed it, even as he did the other contemporaneous language

descriptive of the Messianic offices and times, we conclude for

two reasons. First, he certainly did often use language in that

spiritual way, dressing in bold metaphors moral thoughts of

inspired insight and truth. Secondly, the moral doctrine is the

only one that is true, or that is in keeping with his penetrative

thought. The notion of a physical resurrection is an error

borrowed most likely from the Persians by the Pharisees, and not

belonging to the essential elements of Christianity. The notion

being prevalent at the time in Judea, and being usually expressed

in certain appropriated phrases, when Christ used those phrases in

a true spiritual sense the apostles would naturally apprehend from

them the carnal meaning which already filled their minds in common

with the minds of their countrymen.

The word Hades, translated in the English New Testament by the

word "hell," a word of nearly the same etymological force, but now

conveying a quite different meaning, occurs in the discourses of

Jesus only three several times. The other instances of its use are

repetitions or parallels. First, "And thou, Capernaum, which art

exalted to heaven, shalt be brought down to the under world;" that

is, the great and proud city shall become powerless, a heap of

ruins. Second, "Upon this rock I will found my Church, and the

gates of the under world shall not prevail against it;" that is,

the powers of darkness, the opposition of the wicked, the strength

of evil, shall not destroy my religion; in spite of them it shall

assert its organization and overcome all obstacles.

The remaining example of the Savior's use of this word is in the

parable of Dives and Lazarus. The rich man is described, after

death, as suffering in the under world. Seeing the beggar afar off

in Abraham's bosom, he cries, "Father Abraham, pity me, and send

Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool

my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame." Well known fancies

and opinions are here wrought up in scenic form to convey certain

moral impressions. It will be noticed that the implied division of

the under world into two parts, with a gulf between them,

corresponds to the common Gentile notion of an Elysian region of

delightful meadows for the good and a Tartarean region of

blackness and fire for the bad, both included in one subterranean

kingdom, but divided by an interval. 4

The dramatic details of the account Lazarus being borne into bliss

by angels, Dives asking to have a messenger sent from bale to warn

his surviving brothers rest on opinions afloat among the Jews of

that age, derived from the Persian theology. Zoroaster prays,

"When I shall die, let Aban and Bahman carry me to the bosom of

joy."5 And it was a common belief among the Persians that souls

were at seasons permitted to leave purgatory and visit their

relatives on earth.6 It is evident that the narrative before us is

not a history to be literally construed, but a parable to be

carefully analyzed. The imagery and the particulars are to be laid

aside, and the central thoughts to be drawn forth. Take the words

literally, that the rich man's immaterial soul, writhing in

flames, wished the tip of a finger dipped in water to cool his

tongue, and they are ridiculous. Take them figuratively, as a type

of unknown spiritual anguish, and they are awful. Besides, had

Christ intended to teach the doctrine of a local burning hell, he

surely would have enunciated it in plain words, with solemn

iteration and explanatory amplifications, instead of merely

insinuating it incidentally, in metaphorical

4 See copious illustrations by Rosenmuller, in Luc. cap. xvi. 22,

23.

"Hic locus est partes ubi se via findit in ambas:

Dextera, qua Ditis magni sub moenia tendit;

Hac iter Elysium nobis: at lava malorum

Exercet poenas, et ad impia Tartara mittit."

5 Rhode, Heilige Sage des Zendvolks, s. 408.

6 Ibid. s. 410.

terms, in a professed parable. The sense of the parable is, that

the formal distinctions of this world will have no influence in

the allotments of the future state, but will often be reversed

there; that a righteous Providence, knowing every thing here,

rules hereafter, and will dispense compensating justice to all;

that men should not wait for a herald to rise from the dead to

warn them, but should heed the instructions they already have, and

so live in the life that now is, as to avoid a miserable

condemnation, and secure a blessed acceptance, in the life that is

to come. By inculcating these truths in a striking manner, through

the aid of a parable based on the familiar poetical conceptions of

the future world and its scenery, Christ no more endorses those

conceptions than by using the Messianic phrases of the Jews he

approves the false carnal views which they joined with that

language. To interpret the parable literally, then, and suppose it

meant to teach the actual existence of a located hell of fire for

sinners after death, is to disregard the proprieties of criticism.

"Gehenna," or the equivalent phrase, "Gehenna of fire,"

unfortunately translated into our tongue by the word "hell," is to

be found in the teachings of Christ in only five independent

instances, each of which, after tracing the original Jewish usage

of the term, we will briefly examine. Gehenna, or the Vale of

Hinnom, is derived from two Hebrew words, the first meaning a

vale, the second being the name of its owner. The place thus

called was the eastern part of the beautiful valley that forms the

southern boundary of Jerusalem. Here Moloch, the horrid idol god

worshipped by the Ammonites, and by the Israelites during their

idolatrous lapses, was set up. This monstrous idol had the head of

an ox and the body of a man. It was hollow; and, being filled with

fire, children were laid in its arms and devoured alive by the

heat. This explains the terrific denunciations uttered by the

prophets against those who made their children pass through the

fire to Moloch. The spot was sometimes entitled Tophet, a place of

abhorrence; its name being derived, as some think, from a word

meaning to vomit with loathing, or, as others suppose, from a word

signifying drum, because drums were beaten to drown the shrieks of

the burning children. After these horrible rites were abolished by

Josiah, the place became an utter abomination. All filth, the

offal of the city, the carcasses of beasts, the bodies of executed

criminals, were cast indiscriminately into Gehenna. Fires were

kept constantly burning to prevent the infection of the atmosphere

from the putrifying mass. Worms were to be seen preying on the

relics. The primary meaning, then, of Gehenna, is a valley outside

of Jerusalem, a place of corruption and fire, only to be thought

of with execration and shuddering.

Now, it was not only in keeping with Oriental rhetoric, but also

natural in itself, that figures of speech should be taken from

these obvious and dreadful facts to symbolize any dire evil. For

example, how naturally might a Jew, speaking of some foul wretch,

and standing, perhaps, within sight of the place, exclaim, "He

deserves to be hurled into the fires of Gehenna!" So the term

would gradually become an accepted emblem of abominable

punishment. Such was the fact; and this gives a perspicuous

meaning to the word without supposing it to imply a fiery prison

house of anguish in the future world. Isaiah threatens the King of

Assyria with ruin in these terms: "Tophet is ordained of old, and

prepared for the king: it is made deep and large; the pile thereof

is fire and much wood; the breath of Jehovah, like a stream of

brimstone, doth kindle it." The prophet thus portrays, with the

dread imagery of Gehenna, approaching disaster and overthrow. A

thorough study of the Old Testament shows that the Jews, during

the period which it covers, did not believe in future rewards and

punishments, but expected that all souls without discrimination

would pass their shadowy dream lives in the silence of Sheol.

Between the termination of the Old Testament history and the

commencement of the New, various forms of the doctrine of future

retribution had been introduced or developed among the Jews. But

during this period few, if any, decisive instances can be found in

which the image of penal fire is connected with the future state.

On the contrary, "darkness," "gloom," "blackness," "profound and

perpetual night," are the terms employed to characterize the abode

and fate of the wicked.

Josephus says that, in the faith of the Pharisees, "the worst

criminals were banished to the darkest part of the under world."

Philo represents the depraved and condemned as "groping in the

lowest and darkest part of the creation. The word Gehenna is

rarely found in the literature of this time, and when it is it

commonly seems to be used either simply to denote the detestable

Vale of Hinnom, or else plainly as a general symbol of calamity

and horror, as in the elder prophets.

But in some of the Targums, or Chaldee paraphrases of the Hebrew

Scriptures, especially in the Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel, we

meet repeated applications of the word Gehenna to signify a

punishment by fire in the future state.7 This is a fact about

which there can be no question. And to the documents showing such

a usage of the word, the best scholars are pretty well agreed in

assigning a date as early as the days of Christ. The evidence

afforded by these Targums, together with the marked application of

the term by Jesus himself, and the similar general use of it

immediately after both by Christians and Jews, render it not

improbable that Gehenna was known to the contemporaries of the

Savior as the metaphorical name of hell, a region of fire, in the

under world, where the reprobate were supposed to be punished

after death. But admitting that, before Christ began to teach, the

Jews had modified their early conception of the under world as the

silent and sombre abode of all the dead in common, and had divided

it into two parts, one where the wicked suffer, called Gehenna,

one where the righteous rest, called Paradise, still, that

modification having been borrowed, as is historically evident,

from the Gentiles, or, if developed among themselves, at all

events unconnected with revelation, of course Christianity is not

involved with the truth or falsity of it, is not responsible for

it. It does not necessarily follow that Jesus gave precisely the

same meaning to the word Gehenna that his contemporaries or

successors did. He may have used it in a modified emblematic

sense, as he did many other current terms. In studying his

language, we should especially free our minds both from the

tyranny of pre Christian notions and dogmas and from the

associations and influences of modern creeds, and seek to

interpret it in the light of his own instructions and in the

spirit of his own mind.

We will now examine the cases in which Christ uses the term

Gehenna, and ask what it means.

First: "Whosoever shall say to his brother, Thou vile wretch!

shall be in danger of the fiery Gehenna." Interpret this

literally, and it teaches that whosoever calls his brother a

7 Gesenius, Hebrew Thesaurus, Ge Hinnom.

wicked apostate is in danger of being thrown into the filthy

flames in the Vale of Hinnom. But no one supposes that such was

its meaning. Jesus would say, as we understand him, "I am not come

to destroy, but to fulfil, the law; to show how at the culmination

of the old dispensation a higher and stricter one opens. I say

unto you, that, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the

Pharisees, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. The conditions

of acceptance under the new order are far more profound and

difficult than under the old. That said, Whosoever commits murder

shall be exposed to legal punishment from the public tribunal.

This says, An invisible inward punishment, as much to be dreaded

as the judgments of the Sanhedrim, shall be inflicted upon those

who harbor the secret passions that lead to crime; whosoever, out

of an angry heart, insults his brother, shall be exposed to

spiritual retributions typified by the horrors of yon flaming

valley. They of old time took cognizance of outward crimes by

outward penalties. I take cognizance of inward sins by inward

returns more sure and more fearful."

Second: "If thy right eye be a source of temptation to thee, pluck

it out and fling it away; for it is better for thee that one of

thy members perish than that thy whole body should be cast into

Gehenna." Give these words a literal interpretation, and they

mean, "If your eyes or your hands are the occasions of crime, if

they tempt you to commit offences which will expose you to public

execution, to the ignominy and torture heaped upon felons put to a

shameful death and then flung among the burning filth of Gehenna,

pluck them out, cut them off betimes, and save yourself from such

a frightful end; for it is better to live even thus maimed than,

having a whole body, to be put to a violent death." No one can

suppose that Jesus meant to convey such an idea as that when he

uttered these words. We must, then, attribute a deeper, an

exclusively moral, significance to the passage. It means, "If you

have some bosom sin, to deny and root out which is like tearing

out an eye or cutting off a hand, pause not, but overcome and

destroy it immediately, at whatever cost of effort and suffering;

for it is better to endure the pain of fighting and smothering a

bad passion than to submit to it and allow it to rule until it

acquires complete control over you, pervades your whole nature

with its miserable unrest, and brings you at last into a state of

woe of which Gehenna and its dreadful associations are a fit

emblem." A verse spoken, according to Mark, in immediate

connection with the present passage, confirms the figurative sense

we have attributed to it: "Whosoever shall cause one of these

little ones that believe in me to fall, it were better for him

that a millstone were hanged around his neck and he were plunged

into the midst of the sea;" that is, in literal terms, a man had

better meet a great calamity, even the loss of life, than commit a

foul crime and thus bring the woe of guilt upon his soul.

The phrase, "their worm dieth not, and their fire is not

quenched," is a part of the imagery naturally suggested by the

scene in the Valley of Hinnom, and was used to give greater

vividness and force to the moral impression of the discourse. By

an interpretation resulting either from prejudice or ignorance, it

is generally held to teach the doctrine of literal fire torments

enduring forever. It is a direct quotation from a passage in

Isaiah which signifies that, in a glorious age to come, Jehovah

will cause his worshippers to go forth from new moon to new moon

and look upon the carcasses of the wicked, and see them devoured

by fire which shall not be quenched and gnawed by worms which

shall not die, until the last relics of them are destroyed.

Third: "Fear not them that kill the body but are not able to kill

the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and

body in Gehenna." A similar use of figurative language, in a still

bolder manner, is found in Isaiah. Intending to say nothing more

than that Assyria should be overthrown and crushed, the prophet

bursts out, "Under the glory of the King of Assyria Jehovah shall

kindle a burning like the burning of a fire; and it shall burn and

devour his thorns and his briers in one day, and shall consume the

glory of his forest and of his fruitful field, both soul and

body." Reading the whole passage in Matthew with a single eye, its

meaning will be apparent. We may paraphrase it thus. Jesus says to

his disciples, "You are now going forth to preach the gospel. My

religion and its destinies are intrusted to your hands. As you go

from place to place, be on your guard; for they will persecute

you, and scourge you, and deliver you up to death. But fear them

not. It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master; and

if they have done so unto me, how much more shall they unto you!

Do not, through fear of hostile men, who can only kill your bodies

and are not able in any wise to injure your souls, shrink from

danger and prove recreant to the momentous duties imposed upon

you; but be inspired to proclaim the principles of the heavenly

kingdom with earnestness and courage, in the face of all perils,

by fearing God, him who is able to plunge both your souls and your

bodies in abomination and agony, him who, if you prove unfaithful

and become slothful servants or wicked traitors, will leave your

bodies to a violent death and after that your souls to bitter

shame and anguish. Fear not the temporal, physical power of your

enemies, to be turned from your work by it; but rather fear the

eternal, spiritual power of your God, to be made faithful by it."

Fourth: "Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye

compass sea and land to make one proselyte; and, when he is made,

ye make him twofold more a child of Gehenna than yourselves." That

is, "Ye make him twice as bad as yourselves in hypocrisy, bigotry,

extortion, impurity, and malice, a subject of double guilt and of

double retribution."

Finally, Jesus exclaims to the children of those who killed the

prophets, "Serpents, brood of vipers! how can ye escape the

condemnation of Gehenna?" That is to say, "Venomous creatures, bad

men! you deserve the fate of the worst criminals; you are worthy

of the polluted fires of Gehenna; your vices will surely be

followed by condign punishment: how can such depravity escape the

severest retributions?"

These five are all the distinct instances in which Jesus uses the

word Gehenna. It is plain that he always uses the word

metaphorically. We therefore conclude that Christianity, correctly

understood, never implies that eternal fire awaits sinners in the

future world, but that moral retributions, according to their

deeds, are the portion of all men here and hereafter. There is no

more reason to suppose that essential Christianity contains the

doctrine of a fiery infernal world than there is to suppose that

it really means to declare that God is a glowing mass of flame,

when it says, "Our God is a consuming fire." We must remember the

metaphorical character of much scriptural language. Wickedness is

a fire, in that it preys upon men and draws down the displeasure

of the Almighty, and consumes them.

As Isaiah writes, "Wickedness burneth as the fire, the anger of

Jehovah darkens the land, and the people shall be the food of the

fire." And James declares to proud extortioners, "The rust of your

cankered gold and silver shall eat your flesh as it were fire."

When Jesus says, "It shall be more tolerable for Sodom and

Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city" which will not

listen to the preaching of my kingdom, but drives my disciples

away, he uses a familiar figure to signify that Sodom and Gomorrah

would at such a call have repented in sackcloth and ashes. The

guilt of Chorazin and Bethsaida was, therefore, more hardened than

theirs, and should receive a severer punishment; or, making

allowance for the natural exaggeration of this kind of language,

he means, That city whose iniquities and scornful unbelief lead it

to reject my kingdom when it is proffered shall be brought to

judgment and be overwhelmed with avenging calamities. Two parallel

illustrations of this image are given us by the old prophets.

Isaiah says, "Babylon shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and

Gomorrah." And Jeremiah complains, "The punishment of Jerusalem is

greater than the punishment of Sodom." It is certainly remarkable

that such passages should ever have been thought to teach the

doctrine of a final, universal judgment day breaking on the world

in fire.

The subject of our Lord's teachings in regard to the punishment of

the wicked is included in two classes of texts, and may be summed

up in a few words. One class of texts relate to the visible

establishment of Christianity as the true religion, the Divine

law, at the destruction of the Jewish power, and to the frightful

woes which should then fall upon the murderers of Christ, the

bitter enemies of his cause. All these things were to come upon

that generation, were to happen before some of them then standing

there tasted death. The other class of texts and they are by far

the more numerous signify that the kingdom of Truth is now

revealed and set up; that all men are bound to accept and obey it

with reverence and love, and thus become its blessed subjects, the

happy and immortal children of God; that those who spurn its

offers, break its laws, and violate its pure spirit shall be

punished, inevitably and fearfully, by moral retributions

proportioned to the degrees of their guilt. Christ does not teach

that the good are immortal and that the bad shall be annihilated,

but that all alike, both the just and the unjust, enter the

spiritual world. He does not teach that the bad shall be eternally

miserable, cut off from all possibility of amendment, but simply

that they shall be justly judged. He makes no definitive reference

to duration, but leaves us at liberty, peering into the gloom as

best we can, to suppose, if we think it most reasonable, that the

conditions of our spiritual nature are the same in the future as

now, and therefore that the wicked may go on in evil hereafter,

or, if they will, all turn to righteousness, and the universe

finally become as one sea of holiness and as one flood of praise.

Another portion of Christ's doctrine of the future life hinges on

the phrase "the kingdom of heaven." Much is implied in this term

and its accompaniments, and may be drawn out by answering the

questions, What is heaven? Who are citizens of, and who are aliens

from, the kingdom of God? Let us first examine the subordinate

meanings and shades of meaning with which the Savior sometimes

uses these phrases.

"Ye shall see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and

descending upon the Son of Man." No confirmation of the literal

sense of this that is afforded by any incident found in the

Gospels. There is every reason for supposing that he meant by it,

"There shall be open manifestations of supernatural power and

favor bestowed upon me by God, evident signs of direct

communications between us." His Divine works and instructions

justified the statement. The word "heaven" as here used, then,

does not mean any particular place, but means the approving

presence of God. The instincts and natural language of man prompt

us to consider objects of reverence as above us. We kneel below

them. The splendor, mystery, infinity, of the starry regions help

on the delusion. But surely no one possessing clear spiritual

perceptions will think the literal facts in the case must

correspond to this, that God must dwell in a place overhead called

heaven. He is an Omnipresence.

"Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you for my

sake: rejoice, for great is your reward in heaven." This passage

probably means, "In the midst of tribulation be exceeding glad;

because you shall be abundantly rewarded in a future state for all

your present sufferings in my cause." In that case, heaven

signifies the spiritual world, and does not involve reference to

any precisely located spot. Or it may mean, "Be not disheartened

by insults and persecutions met in the cause of God; for you shall

be greatly blessed in your inward life: the approval of

conscience, the immortal love and pity of God, shall be yours: the

more you are hated and abused by men unjustly, the closer and

sweeter shall be your communion with God." In that case, heaven

signifies fellowship with the Father, and is independent of any

particular time or place.

"Our Father, who art in heaven." Jesus was not the author of this

sentence. It was a part of the Rabbinical synagogue service, and

was based upon the Hebrew conception of God as having his abode in

an especial sense over the firmament. The Savior uses it as the

language of accommodation, as is evident from his conversation

with the woman of Samaria; for he told her that no exclusive spot

was an acceptable place of worship, since "God is a Spirit; and

they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." No

one who comprehends the meaning of the words can suppose that the

Infinite Spirit occupies a confined local habitation, and that men

must literally journey there to be with him after death. Wherever

they may be now, they are away from him or with him, according to

their characters. After death they are more banished from him or

more immediately with him, instantly, wherever they are, according

to the spirit they are of.

"Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth, but in heaven." In

other words, Be not absorbed in efforts to accumulate hoards of

gold and silver, and to get houses and lands, which will soon pass

away; but rather labor to acquire heavenly treasures, wisdom,

love, purity, and faith, which will never pass from your

possession nor cease from your enjoyment.

"I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place

for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where

I am there ye may be also." To understand this text, we must

carefully study the whole four chapters of the connection in which

it stands. They abound in bold symbols. An instance of this is

seen where Jesus, having washed his disciples' feet, says to them,

"Ye are clean, but not all. For he knew who should betray him.

Therefore said he, Ye are not all clean." The actual meaning of

the passage before us may be illustrated by a short paraphrase of

it with the context: "Let not your hearts be troubled by the

thought that I must die and be removed from you; for there are

other states of being besides this earthly life. When they crucify

me, as I have said to you before, I shall not perish, but shall

pass into a higher state of existence with my Father. Whither I go

ye know, and the way ye know: my Father is the end, and the truths

that I have declared point out the way. If ye loved me, ye would

rejoice because I say that I go to the Father. And if I go to him,

if, when they have put me to death, I pass into an unseen state of

blessedness and glory (as I prophesy unto you that I shall,) I

will reveal myself unto you again, and tell you. I go before you

as a pioneer, and will surely come back and confirm, with

irresistible evidence, the reality of what I have already told

you. Therefore, trouble not your hearts, but be of good cheer."

"There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner

that repenteth." The sentiment of this Divine declaration simply

implies that all good beings sympathize with every triumph of

goodness; that the living chain of mutual interest runs through

the spiritual universe, making one family of those on earth and

those in the invisible state.

"Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father." "Cling not

to me, detain me not, for I have not yet left the world forever,

to be in the spiritual state with my Father; and ere I do this I

must seek my disciples, to convince them of my resurrection and to

give them my parting commission and blessing." He used the common

language, for it was the only language which she whom he addressed

would understand; and although, literally interpreted, it conveyed

the idea of a local heaven on high, yet at the same time it

conveyed, and in the only way intelligible to her, all the truth

that was important, namely, that when he disappeared he would

still be living, and be, furthermore, with God.

When Christ finally went from his disciples, he seemed to them to

rise and vanish towards the clouds. This would confirm their

previous material conceptions, and the old forms of speech would

be handed down, strengthened by these phenomena, misunderstood in

themselves and exaggerated in their importance. We generally speak

now of God's "throne," of "heaven," as situated far away in the

blue ether; we point upward to the world of bliss, and say, There

the celestial hosannas roll; there the happy ones, the unforgotten

ones of our love, wait to welcome us. These forms of speech are

entirely natural; they are harmless; they aid in giving

definiteness to our thoughts and feelings, and it is well to

continue their use; it would be difficult to express our thoughts

without them. However, we must understand that they are not

strictly and exclusively true. God is everywhere; and wherever he

is there is heaven to the spirits that are like him and,

consequently, see him and enjoy his ineffable blessedness.

Jesus sometimes uses the phrase "kingdom of heaven" as synonymous

with the Divine will, the spiritual principles or laws which he

was inspired to proclaim. Many of his parables were spoken to

illustrate the diffusive power and the incomparable value of the

truth he taught, as when he said, "The kingdom of heaven is like a

grain of mustard seed, which becomes a great tree;" it is "like

unto leaven, which a woman put in two measures of meal until the

whole was leavened;" it is "like a treasure hid in a field," or

"like a goodly pearl of great price, which, a man finding, he goes

and sells all that he has and buys it." In these examples "the

kingdom of heaven" is plainly a personification of the revealed

will of God, the true law of salvation and eternal life. In answer

to the question why he spoke so many things to the people in

parables, Jesus said to his disciples, "Because it is given unto

you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven; but unto them

it is not given;" that is, You are prepared to understand the

hitherto concealed truths of God's government, if set forth

plainly; but they are not prepared.

Here as also in the parables of the vineyard let out to

husbandmen, and of the man who sowed good seed in his field, and

in a few other cases "the kingdom of heaven" means God's

government, his mode of dealing with men, his method of

establishing his truths in the hearts of men. "The kingdom of

heaven" sometimes signifies personal purity and peace, freedom

from sensual solicitations. "There be eunuchs which have made

themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is

able to receive it, let him receive it."

Christ frequently uses the term "kingdom of heaven" in a somewhat

restricted, traditional sense, based in form but not in spirit

upon the Jewish expectations of the Messiah's kingdom. "Be ye sure

of this, that the kingdom of God is come nigh unto you;" "I must

preach the kingdom of God to other cities also;" "Repent, for the

kingdom of heaven is at hand." Christ was charged to bear to men a

new revelation from God of his government and laws, that he might

reign over them as a monarch over conscious and loyal subjects.

"Many shall come from the East and the West, and shall sit down

with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven; but the

children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness."

The sense of these texts is as follows. "God is now offering unto

you, through me, a spiritual dispensation, a new kingdom; but,

unless you faithfully heed it and fulfil its conditions, you shall

be rejected from it and lose the Divine favor. Although, by your

position as the chosen people, and in the line of revelation, you

are its natural heirs, yet, unless you rule your spirits and lives

by its commands, you shall see the despised Gentiles enjoying all

the privileges your faith allows to the revered patriarchs of your

nation, while yourselves are shut out from them and overwhelmed

with shame and anguish. Your pride of descent, haughtiness of

spirit, and reliance upon dead rites unfit you for the true

kingdom of God, the inward reign of humility and righteousness;

and the very publicans and harlots, repenting and humbling

themselves, shall go into it before you."

To be welcomed under this Messianic dispensation, to become a

citizen of this spiritual kingdom of God, the Savior declares that

there are certain indispensable conditions. A man must repent and

forsake his sins. This was the burden of John's preaching, that

the candidate for the kingdom of heaven must first be baptized

with water unto repentance, as a sign that he abjures and is

cleansed from all his old errors and iniquities. Then he must be

baptized with the Holy Spirit and with fire, that is, must learn

the positive principles of the coming kingdom, and apply them to

his own character, to purge away every corrupt thing. He must be

born again, born of water and of the Spirit: in other words, he

must be brought out from his impurity and wickedness into a new

and Divine life of holiness, awakened to a conscious experience of

purity, truth, and love, the great prime elements in the reign of

God. He must be guileless and lowly. "Whosoever will not receive

the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter

therein."

The kingdom of heaven, the better dispensation which Christ came

to establish, is the humility of contrite hearts, the innocence of

little children, the purity of undefiled consciences, the fruit of

good works, the truth of universal laws, the love of God, and the

conscious experience of an indestructible, blessed being. Those

who enter into these qualities in faith, in feeling, and in action

are full citizens of that eternal kingdom; all others are aliens

from it.

Heaven, then, according to Christ's use of the word, is not

distinctively a world situated somewhere in immensity, but a

purely spiritual experience, having nothing to do with any special

time or place. It is a state of the soul, or a state of society,

under the rule of truth, governed by God's will, either in this

life or in a future. He said to the young ruler who had walked

faithfully in the law, and whose good traits drew forth his love,

"Thou art not far from the kingdom of God." It is evident that

this does not mean a bounded place of abode, but a true state of

character, a virtuous mode of life "My kingdom is not of this

world." "Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice." That

is, "My kingdom is the realm of truth, the dominion of God's will,

and all true men are my subjects." Evidently this is not a

material but a moral reign and therefore unlimited by seasons or

places. Wherever purity, truth, love, obedience, prevail, there is

God, and that is heaven. It is not necessary to depart into some

distant sphere to meet the Infinite Holy One and dwell with him.

He is on the very dust we tread, he is the very centre of our

souls and breath of our lives, if we are only in a state that is

fitted to recognise and enjoy him. "He that hath sent me is with

me: the Father hath not left me alone, for I always do those

things which please him." It is a fair inference from such

statements as this that to do with conscious adoration and love

those things that please God is to be with him, without regard to

time or place; and that is heaven. "I speak that which I have seen

with my Father," God, "and ye do that which ye have seen with your

father, the devil." No one will suppose that Jesus meant to tell

the wicked men whom he was addressing that they committed their

iniquities in consequence of lessons learned in a previous state

of existence with an arch fiend, the parent of all evil. His

meaning, then, was, I bring forth in words and deeds the things

which I have learned in my secret soul from inspired communion

with infinite goodness and perfection; you bring forth the things

which you have learned from communion with the source of sin and

woe, that is, foul propensities, cruel passions, and evil

thoughts.

"I come forth from the Father and am come into the world; again I

leave the world and go unto the Father." "I go unto Him that sent

me." Since it is declared that God is an Omnipresent Spirit, and

that those who obey and love him see him and are with him

everywhere, these striking words must bear one of the two

following interpretations. First, they may imply in general that

man is created and sent into this state of being by the Father,

and that after the termination of the present life the soul is

admitted to a closer union with the Parent Spirit. This gives a

natural meaning to the language which represents dying as going to

the Father. Not that it is necessary to travel to reach God, but

that the spiritual verity is most adequately expressed under such

a metaphor. But, secondly, and more probably, the phraseology

under consideration may be meant as an assertion of the Divine

origin and authority of the special mission of Christ. "Neither

came I of myself, but He sent me;" "The words that I speak unto

you I speak not of myself;" "As the Father hath taught me, I speak

these things." These passages do not necessarily teach the pre

existence of Christ and his descent from heaven in the flesh. That

is a carnal interpretation which does great violence to the

genuine nature of the claims put forth by our Savior. They may

merely declare the supernatural commission of the Son of God, his

direct inspiration and authority. He did not voluntarily assume

his great work, but was Divinely ordered on that service. Compare

the following text: "The baptism of John, whence was it, from

Heaven, or of men?" That is to say, was it of human or of Divine

origin and authority? So when it is said that the Son of Man

descended from heaven, or was sent by the Father, the meaning in

Christ's mind probably was that he was raised up, did his works,

spoke his words, by the inspiration and with the sanction of God.

The accuracy of this interpretation is seen by the following

citation from the Savior's own words, when he is speaking in his

prayer at the last supper of sending his disciples out to preach

the gospel: "As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I

also sent them into the world." The reference, evidently, is to a

Divine choice and sealing, not to a descent upon the earth from

another sphere.

That the author of the Fourth Gospel believed that Christ

descended from heaven literally we have not the shadow of a doubt.

He repeatedly speaks of him as the great super angelic Logos, the

first born Son and perfect image of God, the instrumental cause of

the creation. His mind was filled with the same views, the same

lofty Logos theory that is so abundantly set forth in the writings

of Philo Judaus. He reports and describes the Savior in conformity

with such a theological postulate. Possessed with the foregone

conclusion that Jesus was the Divine Logos, descended from the

celestial abode, and born into the world as a man, in endeavoring

to write out from memory, years after they were uttered, the

Savior's words, it is probable that he unconsciously

misapprehended and tinged them according to his theory. The

Delphic apothegm, "Know thyself," was said to have descended from

heaven:

"E coelo descendit [non ASCII characters]."

By a familiar Jewish idiom, "to ascend into heaven" meant to learn

the will of God.8 And whatever bore the direct sancion of God was

said to descend from heaven. When in these figurative terms Jesus

asserted his Divine commission, it seems that some understood him

literally, and concluded perhaps in consequence of his miracles,

joined with their own speculations that he was the Logos

incarnated. That such a conclusion was an unwarranted inference

from metaphorical language and from a foregone pagan dogma appears

from his own explanatory and justifying words spoken to the Jews.

For when they accused him of making himself God, he replies, "If

in your law they are called gods to whom the word of God came,

charge ye him whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the

world with blasphemy, because he says he is the Son of God?"

Christ's language in the Fourth Gospel

8 Schoettgen, in John iii. 13.

may be fairly explained without implying his actual pre existence

or superhuman nature. But it does not seem to us that John's

possibly can be. His miracles, according to the common idea of

them, did not prove him to be the coequal fac simile, but merely

proved him to be the delegated envoy, of God.

We may sum up the consideration of this point in a few words.

Christ did not essentially mean by the term "heaven" the world of

light and glory located by the Hebrews, and by some other nations,

just above the visible firmament. His meaning, when he spoke of

the kingdom of God or heaven, was always, in some form, either the

reign of justice, purity, and love, or the invisible world of

spirits. If that world, heaven, be in fact, and were in his

conception, a sphere located in space, he never alluded to its

position, but left it perfectly in the dark, keeping his

instructions scrupulously free from any such commitment. He said,

"I go to Him that sent me;" "I will come again and receive you

unto myself, that where I am there ye may be also." The references

to locality are vague and mysterious. The nature of his words, and

their scantiness, are as if he had said, We shall live hereafter;

we shall be with the Father; we shall be together. All the rest is

mystery, even to me: it is not important to be known, and the

Father hath concealed it. Such, almost, are his very words. "A

little while, and ye shall not see me; again, a little while, and

ye shall see me, because I go to the Father." "Father, I will that

they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am." Whether

heaven be technically a material abode or a spiritual state it is

of little importance to us to know; and the teachings of Jesus

seem to have nothing to do with it. The important things for us to

know are that there is a heaven, and how we may prepare for it;

and on these points the revelation is explicit. To suppose the

Savior ignorant of some things is not inconsistent with his

endowments; for he himself avowed his ignorance, saying, "Of that

day knoweth no man; no, not even the angels which are in heaven,

neither the Son, but the Father." And it adds an awful solemnity,

an indescribably exciting interest, to his departure from the

world, to conceive him hovering on the verge of the same mystery

which has enveloped every passing mortal, hovering there with

chastened wonder and curiosity, inspired with an absolute trust

that in that fathomless obscurity the Father would be with him,

and would unveil new realms of life, and would enable him to come

back and assure his disciples. He certainly did not reveal the

details of the future state: whether he was acquainted with them

himself or not we cannot tell.

We next advance to the most important portion of the words of

Christ regarding the life and destiny of the soul, those parts of

his doctrine which are most of a personal, experimental character,

sounding the fountains of consciousness, piercing to the dividing

asunder of our being. It is often said that Jesus everywhere takes

for granted the fact of immortality, that it underlies and

permeates all he does and says. We should know at once that such a

being must be immortal; such a life could never be lived by an

ephemeral creature; of all possible proofs of immortality he is

himself the sublimest. This is true, but not the whole truth. The

resistless assurance, the Divine inspiration, the sublime repose,

with which he enunciates the various thoughts connected with the

theme of endless existence, are indeed marvellous. But he not only

authoritatively assumes the truth of a future life: he speaks

directly of it in many ways, often returns to it, continually

hovers about it, reasons for it, exhorts upon it, makes most of

his instructions hinge upon it, shows that it is a favorite

subject of his communion. We may put the justice of these

statements in a clear light by bringing together and explaining

some of his scattered utterances.

His express language teaches that man in this world is a twofold

being, leading a twofold life, physical and spiritual, the one

temporal, the other eternal, the one apt unduly to absorb his

affections, the other really deserving his profoundest care. This

separation of the body and the soul, and survival of the latter,

is brought to light in various striking forms and with various

piercing applications. In view of the dangers that beset his

disciples on their mission, he exhorted and warned them thus:

"Fear not them which have power to kill the body and afterwards

have no more that they can do; but rather fear Him who can kill

both soul and body;" "Whosoever will save his life shall lose it;

and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it;" that

is, whosoever, for the sake of saving the life of his body,

shrinks from the duties of this dangerous time, shall lose the

highest welfare of the soul; but whosoever loveth his lower life

in the body less than he loves the virtues of a consecrated spirit

shall win the true blessedness of his soul. Both of these passages

show that the soul has a life and interest separate from the

material tabernacle. With what pathos and convincing power was the

same faith expressed in his ejaculation from the cross, "Father,

into thy hands I commend my spirit!" an expression of trust which,

under such circumstances of desertion, horror, and agony, could

only have been prompted by that inspiration of God which he always

claimed to have.

Christ once reasoned with the Sadducees "as touching the dead,

that they rise;" in other words, that the souls of men upon the

decease of the body pass into another and an unending state of

existence: "Neither can they die any more; for they are equal with

the angels, and are children of God, being children of the

resurrection." His argument was, that "God is the God of the

living, not of the dead;" that is, the spiritual nature of man

involves such a relationship with God as pledges his attributes to

its perpetuity. The thought which supports this reasoning

penetrates far into the soul and grasps the moral relations

between man and God. It is most interesting viewed as the

unqualified affirmation by Jesus of the doctrine of a future life

which shall be deathless.

But the Savior usually stood in a more imposing attitude and spoke

in a more commanding tone than are indicated in the foregoing

sentences. The prevailing stand point from which he spoke was that

of an oracle giving responses from the inner shrine of the

Divinity. The words and sentiments he uttered were not his, but

the Father's; and he uttered them in the clear tones of knowledge

and authority, not in the whispering accents of speculation or

surmise. How these entrancing tidings came to him he knew not:

they were no creations of his; they rose spontaneously within him,

bearing the miraculous sign and seal of God, a recommendation he

could no more question or resist than he could deny his own

existence. He was set apart as a messenger to men. The tide of

inspiration welled up till it filled every nerve and crevice of

his being with conscious life and with an overmastering

recognition of its living relations with the Omnipresent and

Everlasting Life. Straightway he knew that the Father was in

him and he in the Father, and that he was commissioned to

reveal the mind of the Father to the world.

He knew, by the direct knowledge of inspiration and consciousness,

that he should live forever. Before his keen, full, spiritual

vitality the thought of death fled away, the thought of

annihilation could not come. So far removed was his soul from the

perception of interior sleep and decay, so broad and powerful was

his consciousness of indestructible life, that he saw quite

through the crumbling husks of time and sense to the crystal sea

of spirit and thought. So absorbing was his sense of eternal life

in himself that he even constructed an argument from his personal

feeling to prove the immortality of others, saying to his

disciples, "Because I live, ye shall live also;" "Ye believe in

God, believe also in me." Ye believe what God declares, for he

cannot be mistaken; believe what I declare for his inspiration

makes me infallible when I say there are many spheres of life for

us when this is ended.

It was from the fulness of this experience that Jesus addressed

his hearers. He spoke not so much as one who had faith that

immortal life would hereafter be revealed and certified, but

rather as one already in the insight and possession of it, as one

whose foot already trod the eternal floor and whose vision pierced

the immense horizon. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that

heareth my word and believeth on Him that sent me hath everlasting

life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from

death unto life." Being himself brought to this immovable

assurance of immortal life by the special inspiration of God, it

was his aim to bring others to the same blessed knowledge. His

efforts to effect this form a most constant feature in his

teachings. His own definition of his mission was, "I am come that

they might have life, and that they might have it more

abundantly." We see by the persistent drift of his words that he

strove to lead others to the same spiritual point he stood at,

that they might see the same prospect he saw, feel the same

certitude he felt, enjoy the same communion with God and sense of

immortality he enjoyed. "As the Father raiseth up the dead and

quickeneth them, even so the Son quickeneth whom he will;" "For as

the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given the Son to have

life in himself;" "Father, glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may

glorify thee; as thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he

might give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him: and

this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true

God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." In other words, the

mission of Christ was to awaken in men the experience of immortal

life; and that would be produced by imparting to them reproducing

in them the experience of his own soul. Let us notice what steps

he took to secure this end.

He begins by demanding the unreserved credence of men to what he

says, claiming to say it with express authority from God, and

giving miraculous credentials. "Whatsoever I speak, therefore, as

the Father said to me, so I speak." This claim to inspired

knowledge he advances so emphatically that it cannot be

overlooked. He then announces, as an unquestionable truth, the

supreme claim of man's spiritual interests upon his attention and

labor, alike from their inherent superiority and their enduring

subsistence. "For what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole

world and lose his own soul?" "Thou fool, this night thy soul

shall be required of thee: then whose shall be those things thou

hast gathered?" "Labor not for the meat which perisheth, but for

that meat which endureth unto everlasting life."

The inspiration which dictated these instructions evidently

based them upon the profoundest spiritual philosophy, upon the

truth that man lives at once in a sphere of material objects which

is comparatively unimportant because he will soon leave it, and in

a sphere of moral realities which is all important because he will

live in it forever. "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by

every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." The body,

existing in the sphere of material relations, is supported by

material bread; but the soul, existing in the sphere of spiritual

relations, is supported by truth, the nourishing breath of God's

love. We are in the eternal world, then, at present. Its laws and

influences penetrate and rule us; its ethereal tides lave and bear

us on; our experience and destiny in it are decided every moment

by our characters. If we are pure in heart, have vital faith and

force, we shall see God and have new revelations made to us. Such

are among the fundamental principles of Christianity.

There is another class of texts, based upon a highly figurative

style of speech, striking Oriental idioms, the explanation of

which will cast further light upon the branch of the subject

immediately before us. "As the living Father hath sent me, and I

live by the Father, so he that eateth me, even he shall live by

me;" that is, As the blessed Father hath inspired me with the

knowledge of him, and I am blessed with the consciousness of his

immortal love, so he that believes and assimilates these truths as

I proclaim them, he shall experience the same blessedness through

my instruction. The words. "I am the bread of life" are explained

by the words "I am the truth." The declaration "Whoso eateth my

flesh hath eternal life" is illustrated by the declaration

"Whosoever heareth my word and believeth on Him that sent me hath

everlasting life." There is no difficulty in understanding what

Jesus meant when he said, "I have meat to eat ye know not of: my

meat is to do the will of Him that sent me." Why should we not

with the same ease, upon the same principles, interpret his

kindred expression, "This is the bread which cometh down from

heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die"? The idea to be

conveyed by all this phraseology is, that whosoever understands,

accepts, assimilates, and brings out in earnest experience, the

truths Christ taught, would realize the life of Christ, feel the

same assurance of Divine favor and eternal blessedness. "He that

eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in

him;" that is, we have the same character, are fed by the same

nutriment, rest in the same experience. Fortunately, we are not

left to guess at the accuracy of this exegesis: it is demonstrated

from the lips of the Master himself. When he knew that the

disciples murmured at what he had said about eating his flesh, and

called it a hard saying, he said to them, "It is the spirit that

quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak

unto you, they are spirit and they are life. But there are some of

you that believe not." Any man who heartily believed what Christ

said that he was Divinely authorized to declare, and did declare,

the pervading goodness of the Father and the immortal blessedness

of the souls of his children, by the very terms was delivered from

the bondage of fear and commenced the consciousness of eternal

life. Of course, we are not to suppose that faith in Christ

obtains immortality itself for the believer: it only rectifies and

lights up the conditions of it, and awakens the consciousness of

it. "I am the resurrection and the life: whosoever liveth and

believeth in me shall never die." We suppose this means, he shall

know that he is never to perish: it cannot refer to physical

dissolution, for the believer dies equally with the unbeliever; it

cannot refer to immortal existence in itself, for the unbeliever

is as immortal as the believer: it must refer to the blessed

nature of that immortality and to the personal assurance of it,

because these Christ does impart to the disciple, while the

unregenerate unbeliever in his doctrine, of course, has them not.

Coming from God to reveal his infinite love, exemplifying the

Divine elements of an immortal nature in his whole career, coming

back from the grave to show its sceptre broken and to point the

way to heaven, well may Christ proclaim, "Whosoever believes in

me" knows he "shall never perish."

Among the Savior's parables is an impressive one, which we cannot

help thinking perhaps fancifully was intended to illustrate the

dealings of Providence in ordering the earthly destiny of

humanity. "So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed

into the ground and the seed should grow up; but when the fruit is

ripe he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come." Men

are seed sown in this world to ripen and be harvested in another.

The figure, taken on the scale of the human race and the whole

earth, is sublime. Whether such an image were originally suggested

by the parable or not, the conception is consistent with Christian

doctrine. The pious Sterling prays,

"Give thou the life which we require, That, rooted fast in thee,

From thee to thee we may aspire, And earth thy garden be."

The symbol shockingly perverted from its original beautiful

meaning by the mistaken belief that we sleep in our graves until a

distant resurrection day is often applied to burial grounds. Let

its appropriate significance be restored. Life is the field, death

the reaper, another sphere of being the immediate garner. An

enlightened Christian, instead of entitling a graveyard the garden

of the dead, and looking for its long buried forms to spring from

its cold embrace, will hear the angel saying again, "They are not

here: they are risen." The line which written on Klopstock's tomb

is a melancholy error, engraved on his cradle would have been an

inspiring truth: "Seed sown by God to ripen for the harvest."

Several fragmentary speeches, which we have not yet noticed, of

the most tremendous and even exhaustive import, are reported as

having fallen from the lips of Christ at different times. These

sentences, rapid and incomplete as they are in the form in which

they have reached us, do yet give us glimpses of the most

momentous character into the profoundest thoughts of his mind.

They are sufficient to enable us to generalize their fundamental

principles, and construct the outlines, if we may so speak, of his

theology, his inspired conception of God, the universe, and man,

and the resulting duties and destiny of man. We will briefly bring

together and interpret these passages, and deduce the system which

they seem to presuppose and rest upon.

Jesus told the woman of Samaria that God was to be worshipped

acceptably neither in that mountain nor at Jerusalem exclusively,

but anywhere, if it were worthily done. "God is a Spirit; and they

that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." This

passage, with others, teaches the spirituality and omnipresence of

God. Christ conceived of God as an infinite Spirit. Again,

comforting his friends in view of his approaching departure, he

said, "In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so I

would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you." Here he

plainly figures the universe as a house containing many

apartments, all pervaded and ruled by the Father's presence. He

was about taking leave of this earth to proceed to another part of

the creation, and he promised to come back to his followers and

assure them there was another abode prepared for them. Christ

conceived of the universe, with its innumerable divisions, as the

house of God. Furthermore, he regarded truth or the essential laws

and right tendencies of things and the will of God as identical.

He said he came into the world to do the will of Him that sent

him; that is, as he at another time expressed it, he came into the

world to bear witness unto the truth. Thus he prayed, "Father,

sanctify them through the truth: thy word is truth." Christ

conceived of pure truth as the will of God. Finally, he taught

that all who obey the truth, or do the will of God, thereby

constitute one family of brethren, one family of the accepted

children of God, in all worlds forever. "He that doeth the truth

cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest that they

are wrought in God;" "Whosoever shall do the will of God, the same

is my brother, and my sister, and mother;" "Ye shall know the

truth, and the truth shall make you free. Whosoever committeth sin

is the servant of sin. And the servant abideth not in the house

forever; but the son abideth forever. If the Son, therefore, make

you free, ye shall be free indeed." That is to say, truth gives a

good man the freedom of the universe, makes him know himself an

heir, immortally and everywhere at home; sin gives the wicked man

over to bondage, makes him feel afraid of being an outcast, loads

him with hardships as a servant. Whoever will believe the

revelations of Christ, and assimilate his experience, shall lose

the wretched burdens of unbelief and fear and be no longer a

servant, but be made free indeed, being adopted as a son.

The whole conception, then, is this: The universe is one vast

house, comprising many subordinate mansions. All the moral beings

that dwell in it compose one immortal family. God is the universal

Father. His will the truth is the law of the household. Whoever

obeys it is a worthy son and has the Father's approbation; whoever

disobeys it is alienated and degraded into the condition of a

servant. We may roam from room to room, but can never get lost

outside the walls beyond the reach of the Paternal arms. Death is

variety of scenery and progress of life:

"We bow our heads At going out, we think, and enter straight

Another golden chamber of the King's, Larger than this we leave,

and lovelier."

Who can comprehend the idea, in its overwhelming magnificence and

in its touching beauty, its sweeping amplitude embracing all

mysteries, its delicate fitness meeting all wants, without being

impressed and stirred by it, even to the regeneration of his soul?

If there is any thing calculated to make man feel and live like a

child of God, it would surely seem to be this conception. Its

unrivalled simplicity and verisimilitude compel the assent of the

mind to its reality. It is the most adequate and sublime view of

things that ever entered the reason of man. It is worthy the

inspiration of God, worthy the preaching of the Son of God. All

the artificial and arbitrary schemes of fanciful theologians are

as ridiculous and impertinent before it as the offensive flaring

of torches in the face of one who sees the steady and solemn

splendors of the sun. To live in the harmony of the truth of

things, in the conscious love of God and enjoyment of immortality,

blessed children, everywhere at home in the hospitable mansions of

the everlasting Father, this is the experience to which Christ

calls his followers; and any eschatology inconsistent with such a

conception is not his.

There are two general methods of interpretation respectively

applied to the words of Christ, the literal, or mechanical, and

the spiritual, or vital. The former leads to a belief in his

second visible advent with an army of angels from heaven, a bodily

resurrection of the dead, a universal judgment, the burning up of

the world, eternal tortures of the wicked in an abyss of infernal

fire, a heaven located on the arch of the Hebrew firmament. The

latter gives us a group of the profoundest moral truths clustered

about the illuminating and emphasizing mission of Christ, sealed

with Divine sanctions, truths of universal obligation and of all

redeeming power. The former method is still adopted by the great

body of Christendom, who are landed by it in a system of doctrines

well nigh identical with those of the Pharisees, against which

Christ so emphatically warned his followers, a system of

traditional dogmas not having the slightest support in philosophy,

nor the least contact with the realities of experience, nor the

faintest color of inherent or historical probability. In this age

they are absolutely incredible to unhampered and studious minds.

On the other hand, the latter method is pursued by the growing

body of rational Christians, and it guides them to a consistent

array of indestructible moral truths, simple, fundamental, and

exhaustive, an array of spiritual principles commanding universal

and implicit homage, robed in their own brightness, accredited by

their own fitness, armed with the loveliness and terror of their

own rewarding and avenging divinity, flashing in mutual lights and

sounding in consonant echoes alike from the law of nature and from

the soul of man, as the Son of God, with miraculous voice, speaks

between.

CHAPTER VII.

RESURRECTION OF CHRIST.

OF all the single events that ever were supposed to have occurred

in the world, perhaps the most august in its moral associations

and the most stupendous in its lineal effects, both on the outward

fortunes and on the inward experience of mankind, is the

resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. If, therefore, there

is one theme in all the range of thought worthy of candid

consideration, it is this. There are two ways of examining it. We

may, as unquestioning Christians, inquire how the New Testament

writers represent it, what premises they assume, what statements

they make, and what inferences they draw. Thus, without

perversion, without mixture of our own notions, we should

construct the Scripture doctrine of the resurrection of the

Savior. Again as critical scholars and philosophical thinkers, we

may study that doctrine in all its parts, scrutinize it in all its

bearings, trace, as far as possible, the steps and processes of

its formation, discriminate as well as we can, by all fair tests,

whether it be entirely correct, or wholly erroneous, or partly

true and partly false. Both of these methods of investigation are

necessary to a full understanding of the subject. Both are

obligatory upon the earnest inquirer. Whoso would bravely face his

beliefs and intelligently comprehend them, with their grounds and

their issues, with a devout desire for the pure truth, whatsoever

it may be, putting his trust in the God who made him, will never

shrink from either of these courses of examination. Whoso does

shrink from these inquiries is either a moral coward, afraid of

the results of an honest search after that truth of things which

expresses the will of the Creator, or a spiritual sluggard,

frightened by a call to mental effort and torpidly clinging to

ease of mind. And whoso, accepting the personal challenge of

criticism, carries on the investigation with prejudice and

passion, holding errors because he thinks them safe and useful,

and rejecting realities because he fancies them dangerous and

evil, is an intellectual traitor, disloyal to the sacred laws by

which God hedges the holy fields and rules the responsible

subjects of the realm of truth. We shall combine the two modes of

inquiry, first singly asking what the Scriptures declare, then

critically seeking what the facts will warrant, it being

unimportant to us whether these lines exactly coincide or diverge

somewhat, the truth itself being all. We now pass to an

examination of Christ's resurrection from five points of view:

first, as a fact; second, as a fulfilment of prophecy; third, as a

pledge; fourth, as a symbol; and fifth, as a theory.

The writers of the New Testament speak of the resurrection of

Christ, in the first place, as a fact. "Jesus whom ye slew and

hanged on a tree, him hath God raised up." It could not have been

viewed by them in the light of a theory or a legend, nor, indeed,

as any thing else than a marvellous but literal fact. This appears

from their minute accounts of the scenes at the sepulchre and of

the disappearance of his body. Their declarations of this are most

unequivocal, emphatic, iterated, "The Lord is risen indeed." All

that was most important in their faith they based upon it, all

that was most precious to them in this life they staked upon it.

"Else why stand we in jeopardy every hour?" They held it before

their inner vision as a guiding star through the night of their

sufferings and dangers, and freely poured out their blood upon the

cruel shrines of martyrdom in testimony that it was a fact.

That they believed he literally rose from the grave in visible

form also appears, and still more forcibly, from their descriptions

of his frequent manifestations to them. These show that in their

faith he assumed at his resurrection the same body in which he had

lived before, which was crucified and buried. All attempts, whether

by Swedenborgians or others, to explain this Scripture language as

signifying that he rose in an immaterial body, are futile.1 He

appeared to their senses and was recognised by his identical

bodily form. He partook of physical food with them. "They gave him

a piece of broiled fish and of an honey comb; and he ate before

them." The marks in his hands and side were felt by the

incredulous Thomas, and convinced him. He said to them, "Handle

me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me

have." To a candid mind there can hardly be a question that the

gospel records describe the resurrection of Christ as a literal

fact, that his soul reanimated the deceased body, and that in it

he showed himself to his disciples. Yet that there are a few texts

implying the immateriality of his resurrection body that there are

two accounts of it in the gospels we cannot deny.

We advance to see what is the historical evidence for the fact of

the resurrection of Christ. This argument, of course, turns

chiefly on one point, namely, the competency of the witnesses, and

the validity of their testimony.2 We will present the usually

exhibited scheme of proof as strongly as we can.3 In the first

place, those who testified to the resurrection were numerous

enough, so far as mere numbers go, to establish the fact beyond

question. Paul declares there were above five hundred who from

their personal knowledge could affirm of the Lord's resurrection.

But particularly there were the eleven apostles, the two Marys,

Cleopas, and the disciples from whom Joseph and Matthias the

candidates for Judas Iscariot's apostleship were selected,

consisting probably of most of the seventy. If the evidence of any

number of men ought to convince us of the alleged event, then,

under the existing circumstances, that of twelve ought. Important

matters of history are often unhesitatingly received on the

authority of a single historian. If the occurrences at the time

were sufficient to demonstrate to a reasonable mind the reality of

the resurrection, then the unanimous testimony of twelve men to

those occurrences should convince us. The oaths of a thousand

would be no stronger.

These men possessed sufficient abilities to be trusted, good

powers of judgment, and varied experience. The selection of them

by Him who "knew what was in man," the boldness and efficiency of

their lives, the fruits of their labors everywhere, amply prove

their

1 The opposite view is ably argued by Bush in his valuable

treatise on the Resurrection.

2 Sherlock, Trial of the Witnesses.

3 Ditton, Demonstration of the Resurrection of Christ. For a

sternly faithful estimate of the cogency of this argument, it must

be remembered that all the data, every fact and postulate in each

step of the reasoning, rest on the historical authority of the

four Gospels, documents whose authorship and date are lost in

obscurity. Even of "orthodox" theologians few, with any claims to

scholarship, now hold that these Gospels, as they stand, were

written by the persons whose names they bear. They wander and

waver in a thick fog. See Milman's "History of Christianity," vol.

i. ch. ii. appendix ii.

general intelligence and energy. And they had, too, the most

abundant opportunities of knowledge in regard to the facts to

which they bore witness. They were present in the places, at the

times, when and where the events occurred. Every motive would

conspire to make them scrutinize the subject and the attendant

circumstances. And it seems they did examine; for at first some

doubted, but afterwards believed. They had been close companions

of Jesus for more than a year at the least. They had studied his

every feature, look, gesture. They must have been able to

recognise him, or to detect an impostor, if the absurd idea of an

attempted imposition can be entertained. They saw him many times,

near at hand, in the broad light. Not only did they see him, but

they handled his wounded limbs and listened to his wondrous voice.

If these means of knowing the truth were not enough to make their

evidence valid, then no opportunities could be sufficient.

Whoso allows its full force to the argument thus far will admit

that the testimony of the witnesses to the resurrection is

conclusive, unless he suspects that by some cause they were either

incapacitated to weigh evidence fairly, or were led wilfully to

stifle the truth and publish a falsehood. Very few persons have

ever been inclined to make this charge, that the apostles were

either wild enthusiasts of fancy, or crafty calculators of fraud;

and no one has ever been able to support the position even with

moderate plausibility. Granting, in the first place,

hypothetically, that the disciples were ever so great enthusiasts

in their general character and conduct, still, they could not have

been at all so in relation to the resurrection, because, before it

occurred, they had no belief, expectations, nor thoughts about it.

By their own frank confessions, they did not understand Christ's

predictions, nor the ancient supposed prophecies of that event.

And without a strong faith, a burning hopeful desire, or something

of the kind, for it to spring from, and rest on, and be nourished

by, evidently no enthusiasm could exist. Accordingly, we find that

previous to the third day after Christ's death they said nothing,

thought nothing, about a resurrection; but from that time, as by

an inspiration from heaven, they were roused to both words and

deeds. The sudden astonishing change here alluded to is to be

accounted for only by supposing that in the mean time they had

been brought to a belief that the resurrection had occurred. But,

secondly, it is to be noticed that these witnesses were not

enthusiasts on other subjects. No one could be the subject of such

an overweening enthusiasm as the hypothesis supposes, without

betraying it in his conduct, without being overmastered and led by

it as an insane man is by his mania. The very opposite of all this

was actually the case with the apostles. The Gospels are

unpretending, dispassionate narratives, without rhapsody,

adulation, or vanity. Their whole conduct disproves the charge of

fanaticism. Their appeals were addressed more to reason than to

feeling; their deeds were more courageous than rash. They avoided

tumult, insult, and danger whenever they could honorably do so;

but, when duty called, their noble intrepidity shrank not. They

were firm as the trunks of oaks to meet the agony and horror of a

violent death when it came; yet they rather shunned than sought to

wear the glorious crown from beneath whose crimson circlet drops

of bloody sweat must drip from a martyr's brows. The number of the

witnesses for the resurrection, the abilities they possessed,

their opportunities for knowing the facts, prove the impossibility

of their being duped, unless we suppose them to have been blind

fanatics. This we have just shown they were not. Would it not,

moreover, be most marvellous if they were such heated fanatics,

all of them, so many men?

But there is one further foothold for the disbeliever in the

historic resurrection of Christ. He may say, "I confess the

witnesses were capable of knowing, and undoubtedly did know, the

truth; but, for some reason, they suppressed it, and proclaimed a

deception." As to this charge, we not only deny the actuality, but

even the possibility, of its truth. The narratives of the

evangelists contain the strongest evidences of their honesty. The

many little unaccountable circumstances they recount, which are so

many difficulties in the way of critical belief, the real and the

apparent inconsistencies, none of these would have been permitted

by fraudulent authors. They are the most natural things in the

world, supposing their writers unsuspiciously honest. They also

frankly confess their own and each others' errors, ignorance,

prejudices, and faults. Would they have done this save from

simple hearted truthfulness? Would a designing knave voluntarily

reveal to a suspicious scrutiny actions and traits naturally

subversive of confidence in him? The conduct of the disciples

under the circumstances, through all the scenes of their after

lives, proves their undivided and earnest honesty. The cause they

had espoused was, if we deny its truth, to the last degree

repulsive in itself and in its concomitants, and they were

surrounded with allurements to desert it. Yet how unyielding,

wonderful, was their disinterested devotedness to it, without

exception! Not one, overcome by terror or bowed by strong anguish,

shrank from his self imposed task and cried out, "I confess!" No;

but when they, and their first followers who knew what they knew,

were laid upon racks and torn, when they were mangled and devoured

alive by wild beasts, when they were manacled fast amidst the

flames till their souls rode forth into heaven in chariots of

fire, amidst all this, not one of them ever acknowledged fraud or

renounced his belief in the resurrection of Jesus. Were they not

honest? Others have died in support of theories and opinions with

which their convictions and passions had become interwoven: they

died rather than deny facts which were within the cognizance of

their senses. Could any man, however firm and dauntless, under the

circumstances, go through the trials they bore, without a feeling

of truth and of God to support him?

These remarks are particularly forcible in connection with the

career of Paul. Endowed with brilliant talents, learned, living at

the time and place, he must have been able to form a reliable

opinion. And yet, while all the motives that commonly actuate men

loudmouthed consistency, fame, wealth, pride, pleasure, the rooted

force of inveterate prejudices all were beckoning to him from the

temples and palaces of the Pharisaic establishment, he spurned the

glowing visions of his ambition and dashed to earth the bright

dreams of his youth. He ranged himself among the Christians, the

feeble, despised, persecuted Christians; and, after having suffered

every thing humanity could bear, having preached the resurrection

everywhere with unflinching power, he was at last crucified, or

beheaded, by Nero; and there, expiring among the seven hills of

Rome, he gave the resistless testimony of his death to the

resurrection of Jesus, gasping, as it were, with his last breath,

"It is true." Granting the honesty of these men, we could not have

any greater proof of it than we have now.

But dishonesty in this matter was not merely untrue; it was also

impossible. If fraud is admitted, a conspiracy must have been

formed among the witnesses. But that a conspiracy of such a

character should have been entered into by such men is in itself

incredible, in the outset. And then, if it had been entered into,

it must infallibly have broken through, been found out, or been

betrayed, in the course of the disasters, perils, terrible trials,

to which it and its fabricators were afterwards exposed. Prove

that a body of from twelve to five hundred men could form a plan

to palm off a gross falsehood upon the world, and could then

adhere to it unfalteringly through the severest disappointments,

dangers, sufferings, differences of opinion, dissension of feeling

and action, without retiring from the undertaking, letting out the

secret, or betraying each other in a single instance in the course

of years, prove this, and you prove that men may do and dare, deny

and suffer, not only without motives, but in direct opposition to

their duty, interest, desire, prejudice, and passion. The

disciples could not have pretended the resurrection from

sensitiveness to the probable charge that they had been miserably

deceived; for they did not understand their Master to predict any

such event, nor had they the slightest expectation of it. They

could not have pretended it for the sake of establishing and

giving authority to the good precepts and doctrines Jesus taught;

because such a course would have been in the plainest antagonism

to all those principles themselves, and because, too, they must

have known both the utter wickedness and the desperate hazards and

forlornness of such an attempt to give a fictitious sanction to

moral truths. In such an enterprise there was before them not the

faintest probability of even the slightest success. Every selfish

motive would tend to deter them; for poverty, hatred, disgrace,

stripes, imprisonment, contempt, and death stared in their faces

from the first step that way. Dishonesty, deliberate fraud, then,

in this matter, was not merely untrue, but was impossible. The

conclusion from the whole view is, therefore, the conviction that

the evidence of the witnesses for the resurrection of Jesus is

worthy of credence.

There are three considerations, further, worthy of notice in

estimating the strength of the historic argument for the

resurrection. First, the conduct of the Savior himself in relation

to the subject. The charge of unbalanced enthusiasm is

inconsistent with the whole character and life of Jesus; but

suppose on this point he was an enthusiast, and really believed

that three days after his death he would rise again. In that case,

would not his mind have dwelt upon the wonderful anticipated

phenomenon? Would not his whole soul have been wrapped up in it,

and his speech have been almost incessantly about it? Yet he spoke

of it only three or four times, and then with obscurity. Again:

suppose he was an impostor. An impostor would hardly have risked

his reputation voluntarily on what he knew could never take place.

Had he done so, his only reliance must have been upon the

credulous enthusiasm of his followers. He would then have made it

the chief topic, would have striven strenuously to make it a

living and intense hope, an immovable, all controlling faith,

concentrating on it their desires and expectations, heart and

soul. But he really did not do this at all. He did not even make

them understand what his vaticinations of the resurrection meant.

And when they saw his untenanted body hanging on the cross, they

slunk away in confusion and despair. Admit, again, that Christ was

enthusiast, or impostor, or both: these qualities exist not in the

grave. Here was their end. They could neither raise him from the

dead nor move him from the tomb. No considerations in any way

connected with Christ himself, therefore, can account for the

occurrences that succeeded his death.

Secondly, if the resurrection did not take place, what became of

the Savior's body? We have already given reasons why the disciples

could not have falsely pretended the resurrection. It is also

impossible that they obtained, or surreptitiously disposed of, the

dead and interred body; because it was in a tomb of rock securely

sealed against them, and watched by a guard which they could

neither bribe nor overpower; because they were too much

disheartened and alarmed to try to get it; because they could not

possibly want it, since they expected a temporal Messiah, and had

no hope of a resurrection like that which they soon began

proclaiming to the world. And as for the story told by the watch,

or rather by the chief priests and Pharisees, it has not

consistency enough to hold together. Its foolish unlikelihood has

always been transparent. It is unreasonable to suppose that fresh

guards would slumber at a post where the penalty of slumbering was

death. And, if one or two did sleep, it is absurd to think all

would do so. Besides, if they slept, how knew they what transpired

in the mean time? Could they have dreamed it? Dreams are not taken

in legal depositions; and, furthermore, it would be an astounding,

gratuitous miracle if they all dreamed the same thing at the same

time.

Finally, a powerful collateral argument in proof of the

resurrection of Christ is furnished by the conduct of the Jews. It

might seem that if the guards told the chief priests, scribes, and

Pharisees, of the miracles which occurred at the sepulchre, they

must immediately have believed and proclaimed their belief in the

Messiahship and resurrection of the crucified Savior. But they had

previously remained invulnerable to as cogent proof as this would

afford. They had acknowledged the miracles wrought by him when he

was alive, but attributed them even his works of beneficence to

demoniacal power. They said, "He casteth out devils by the power

of Beelzebub, the prince of devils." So they acted in the present

case, and, notwithstanding the peerless miracle related by the

sentinels, still persisted in their alienation from the Christian

faith. Their intensely cherished preconceptions respecting the

Messiah, their persecution and crucifixion of Jesus, the glaring

inconsistency of his teachings and experience with most that they

expected, these things compelled their incredulity to every proof

of the Messiahship of the contemned and murdered Nazarene. For, if

they admitted the facts on which such proof was based, they would

misinterpret them and deny the inferences justly drawn from them.

This was plainly the case. It may be affirmed that the Jews

believed the resurrection, because they took no fair measures to

disprove it, but threatened those who declared it. Since they had

every inducement to demonstrate its falsity, and might, it seems,

have done so had it been false, and yet never made the feeblest

effort to unmask the alleged fraud, we must suspect that they were

themselves secretly convinced of its truth, but dared not let it

be known, for fear it would prevail, become mighty in the earth,

and push them from their seats. In the rage and blindness of their

prejudices, they cried, "His blood be on us and on our children!"

And from that generation to our own, their history has afforded a

living proof of the historic truth of the gospel, and of the

stability of its chief corner stone, the resurrection of Christ.

The triumphal progress of Christianity from conquering to

conquering, together with the baffled plans and complete

subjection of the Jews, show that their providential preparatory

mission has been fulfilled. If God is in history, guiding the

moral drift of human affairs, then the dazzling success of the

proclamation of the risen Redeemer is the Divine seal upon the

truth of his mission and the reality of his apotheosis. Planting

himself on this ground, surrounding himself with these evidences,

the reverential Christian will at least for a long time to come

cling firmly to the accepted fact of the resurrection of Christ,

regardless of whatever misgivings and perplexities may trouble the

mind of the iconoclastic and critical truth seeker.