transgressors of His law. Those who flatter themselves that He is too
merciful to execute justice upon the sinner, have only to look to the
cross of Calvary. The death of the spotless Son of God testifies that “the
wages of sin is death,” that every violation of God’s law must receive its
just retribution. Christ the sinless became sin for man. He bore the guilt
of transgression, and the hiding of His Father’s face, until His heart was
broken and His life crushed out. All this sacrifice was made that sinners
might be redeemed. In no other way could man be freed from the penalty of
sin. And every soul that refuses to become a partaker of the atonement
provided at such a cost, must bear in his own person the guilt and
punishment of transgression.
Let us consider what the Bible teaches further concerning the ungodly and
unrepentant, whom the Universalist places in heaven as holy, happy angels.
“I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life
freely.”(942) This promise is only to those that thirst. None but those
who feel their need of the water of life, and seek it at the loss of all
things else, will be supplied. “He that overcometh shall inherit all
things; and I will be his God, and he shall be My son.”(943) Here, also,
conditions are specified. In order to inherit all things, we must resist
and overcome sin.
The Lord declares by the prophet Isaiah, “Say ye to the righteous, that it
shall be well with him.” “Woe unto the wicked! it shall be ill with him:
for the reward of his hands shall be given him.”(944) “Though a sinner do
evil a hundred times,” says the wise man, “and his days be prolonged, yet
surely I know that it shall be well with them that fear God, which fear
before Him: but it shall not be well with the wicked.”(945) And Paul
testifies that the sinner is treasuring up unto himself “wrath against the
day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will
render to every man according to his deeds;” “tribulation and anguish upon
every soul of man that doeth evil.”(946)
“No fornicator, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater,
hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.”(947) “Follow peace
with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.”(948)
“Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have right to
the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. For
without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and
idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.”(949)
God has given to men a declaration of His character, and of His method of
dealing with sin. “The Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering,
and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving
iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the
guilty.”(950) “All the wicked will He destroy.” “The transgressors shall
be destroyed together: the end of the wicked shall be cut off.”(951) The
power and authority of the divine government will be employed to put down
rebellion; yet all the manifestations of retributive justice will be
perfectly consistent with the character of God as a merciful,
long-suffering, benevolent being.
God does not force the will or judgment of any. He takes no pleasure in a
slavish obedience. He desires that the creatures of His hands shall love
Him because He is worthy of love. He would have them obey Him because they
have an intelligent appreciation of His wisdom, justice, and benevolence.
And all who have a just conception of these qualities will love Him
because they are drawn toward Him in admiration of His attributes.
The principles of kindness, mercy, and love, taught and exemplified by our
Saviour, are a transcript of the will and character of God. Christ
declared that He taught nothing except that which He had received from His
Father. The principles of the divine government are in perfect harmony
with the Saviour’s precept, “Love your enemies.” God executes justice upon
the wicked, for the good of the universe, and even for the good of those
upon whom His judgments are visited. He would make them happy if He could
do so in accordance with the laws of His government and the justice of His
character. He surrounds them with the tokens of His love, He grants them a
knowledge of His law, and follows them with the offers of His mercy; but
they despise His love, make void His law, and reject His mercy. While
constantly receiving His gifts, they dishonor the Giver; they hate God
because they know that He abhors their sins. The Lord bears long with
their perversity; but the decisive hour will come at last, when their
destiny is to be decided. Will He then chain these rebels to His side?
Will He force them to do His will?
Those who have chosen Satan as their leader, and have been controlled by
his power, are not prepared to enter the presence of God. Pride,
deception, licentiousness, cruelty, have become fixed in their characters.
Can they enter heaven, to dwell forever with those whom they despised and
hated on earth? Truth will never be agreeable to a liar; meekness will not
satisfy self-esteem and pride; purity is not acceptable to the corrupt;
disinterested love does not appear attractive to the selfish. What source
of enjoyment could heaven offer to those who are wholly absorbed in
earthly and selfish interests?
Could those whose lives have been spent in rebellion against God be
suddenly transported to heaven, and witness the high, the holy state of
perfection that ever exists there,—every soul filled with love, every
countenance beaming with joy, enrapturing music in melodious strains
rising in honor of God and the Lamb, and ceaseless streams of light
flowing upon the redeemed from the face of Him who sitteth upon the
throne,—could those whose hearts are filled with hatred of God, of truth
and holiness, mingle with the heavenly throng and join their songs of
praise? Could they endure the glory of God and the Lamb? No, no; years of
probation were granted them, that they might form characters for heaven;
but they have never trained the mind to love purity; they have never
learned the language of heaven, and now it is too late. A life of
rebellion against God has unfitted them for heaven. Its purity, holiness,
and peace would be torture to them; the glory of God would be a consuming
fire. They would long to flee from that holy place. They would welcome
destruction, that they might be hidden from the face of Him who died to
redeem them. The destiny of the wicked is fixed by their own choice. Their
exclusion from heaven is voluntary with themselves, and just and merciful
on the part of God.
Like the waters of the flood, the fires of the great day declare God’s
verdict that the wicked are incurable. They have no disposition to submit
to divine authority. Their will has been exercised in revolt; and when
life is ended, it is too late to turn the current of their thoughts in the
opposite direction, too late to turn from transgression to obedience, from
hatred to love.
In sparing the life of Cain the murderer, God gave the world an example of
what would be the result of permitting the sinner to live, to continue a
course of unbridled iniquity. Through the influence of Cain’s teaching and
example, multitudes of his descendants were led into sin, until “the
wickedness of man was great in the earth,” and “every imagination of the
thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” “The earth also was
corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.”(952)
In mercy to the world, God blotted out its wicked inhabitants in Noah’s
time. In mercy, He destroyed the corrupt dwellers in Sodom. Through the
deceptive power of Satan, the workers of iniquity obtain sympathy and
admiration, and are thus constantly leading others to rebellion. It was so
in Cain’s and in Noah’s day, and in the time of Abraham and Lot; it is so
in our time. It is in mercy to the universe that God will finally destroy
the rejecters of His grace.
“The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through
Jesus Christ our Lord.”(953) While life is the inheritance of the
righteous, death is the portion of the wicked. Moses declared to Israel,
“I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil.”(954)
The death referred to in these scriptures is not that pronounced upon
Adam, for all mankind suffer the penalty of his transgression. It is the
“second death” that is placed in contrast with everlasting life.
In consequence of Adam’s sin, death passed upon the whole human race. All
alike go down into the grave. And through the provisions of the plan of
salvation, all are to be brought forth from their graves. “There shall be
a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust;”(955) “for as in
Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.”(956) But a
distinction is made between the two classes that are brought forth. “All
that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth; they
that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have
done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.”(957) They who have been
“accounted worthy” of the resurrection of life, are “blessed and holy.”
“On such the second death hath no power.”(958) But those who have not,
through repentance and faith, secured pardon, must receive the penalty of
transgression,—“the wages of sin.” They suffer punishment varying in
duration and intensity, “according to their works,” but finally ending in
the second death. Since it is impossible for God, consistently with His
justice and mercy, to save the sinner in his sins, He deprives him of the
existence which his transgressions have forfeited, and of which he has
proved himself unworthy. Says an inspired writer, “Yet a little while, and
the wicked shall not be: yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place,
and it shall not be.” And another declares, “They shall be as though they
had not been.”(959) Covered with infamy, they sink into hopeless, eternal
oblivion.
Thus will be made an end of sin, with all the woe and ruin which have
resulted from it. Says the psalmist: “Thou hast destroyed the wicked, Thou
hast put out their name forever and ever. O thou enemy, destructions are
come to a perpetual end.”(960) John, in the Revelation, looking forward to
the eternal state, hears a universal anthem of praise, undisturbed by one
note of discord. Every creature in heaven and earth was heard ascribing
glory to God.(961) There will then be no lost souls to blaspheme God, as
they writhe in never-ending torment; no wretched beings in hell will
mingle their shrieks with the songs of the saved.
Upon the fundamental error of natural immortality rests the doctrine of
consciousness in death,—a doctrine, like eternal torment, opposed to the
teachings of the Scriptures, to the dictates of reason, and to our
feelings of humanity. According to the popular belief, the redeemed in
heaven are acquainted with all that takes place on the earth, and
especially with the lives of the friends whom they have left behind. But
how could it be a source of happiness to the dead to know the troubles of
the living, to witness the sins committed by their own loved ones, and to
see them enduring all the sorrows, disappointments, and anguish of life?
How much of heaven’s bliss would be enjoyed by those who were hovering
over their friends on earth? And how utterly revolting is the belief that
as soon as the breath leaves the body, the soul of the impenitent is
consigned to the flames of hell! To what depths of anguish must those be
plunged who see their friends passing to the grave unprepared, to enter
upon an eternity of woe and sin! Many have been driven to insanity by this
harrowing thought.
What say the Scriptures concerning these things? David declares that man
is not conscious in death. “His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his
earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.”(962) Solomon bears the same
testimony: “The living know that they shall die: but the dead know not
anything.” “Their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished;
neither have they any more a portion forever in anything that is done
under the sun.” “There is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom,
in the grave, whither thou goest.”(963)
When, in answer to his prayer, Hezekiah’s life was prolonged fifteen
years, the grateful king rendered to God a tribute of praise for His great
mercy. In this song he tells the reason why he thus rejoices: “The grave
cannot praise Thee, death cannot celebrate Thee: they that go down into
the pit cannot hope for Thy truth. The living, the living, he shall praise
Thee, as I do this day.”(964) Popular theology represents the righteous
dead as in heaven, entered into bliss, and praising God with an immortal
tongue; but Hezekiah could see no such glorious prospect in death. With
his words agrees the testimony of the psalmist: “In death there is no
remembrance of Thee: in the grave who shall give Thee thanks?” “The dead
praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence.”(965)
Peter, on the day of Pentecost, declared that the patriarch David “is both
dead and buried, and his sepulcher is with us unto this day.” “For David
is not ascended into the heavens.”(966) The fact that David remains in the
grave until the resurrection, proves that the righteous do not go to
heaven at death. It is only through the resurrection, and by virtue of the
fact that Christ has risen, that David can at last sit at the right hand
of God.
And said Paul: “If the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: and if
Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then
they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished.”(967) If for
four thousand years the righteous had gone directly to heaven at death,
how could Paul have said that if there is no resurrection, “they which are
fallen asleep in Christ are perished”? No resurrection would be necessary.
The martyr Tyndale, referring to the state of the dead, declared: “I
confess openly, that I am not persuaded that they be already in the full
glory that Christ is in, or the elect angels of God are in. Neither is it
any article of my faith; for if it were so, I see not but then the
preaching of the resurrection of the flesh were a thing in vain.”(968)
It is an undeniable fact that the hope of immortal blessedness at death
has led to wide-spread neglect of the Bible doctrine of the resurrection.
This tendency was remarked by Dr. Adam Clarke, who said: “The doctrine of
the resurrection appears to have been thought of much more consequence
among the primitive Christians than it is _now!_ How is this? The apostles
were continually insisting on it, and exciting the followers of God to
diligence, obedience, and cheerfulness through it. And their successors in
the present day seldom mention it! So apostles preached, and so primitive
Christians believed; so we preach, and so our hearers believe. There is
not a doctrine in the gospel on which more stress is laid; and there is
not a doctrine in the present system of preaching which is treated with
more neglect!”(969)
This has continued until the glorious truth of the resurrection has been
almost wholly obscured, and lost sight of by the Christian world. Thus a
leading religious writer, commenting on the words of Paul in 1 Thess.
4:13-18, says: “For all practical purposes of comfort the doctrine of the
blessed immortality of the righteous takes the place for us of any
doubtful doctrine of the Lord’s second coming. At our death the Lord comes
for us. That is what we are to wait and watch for. The dead are already
passed into glory. They do not wait for the trump for their judgment and
blessedness.”
But when about to leave His disciples, Jesus did not tell them that they
would soon come to Him. “I go to prepare a place for you,” He said. “And
if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you
unto Myself.”(970) And Paul tells us, further, that “the Lord Himself
shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the Archangel,
and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then
we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the
clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the
Lord.” And he adds, “Comfort one another with these words.”(971) How wide
the contrast between these words of comfort and those of the Universalist
minister previously quoted. The latter consoled the bereaved friends with
the assurance, that, however sinful the dead might have been, when he
breathed out his life here he was to be received among the angels. Paul
points his brethren to the future coming of the Lord, when the fetters of
the tomb shall be broken, and the “dead in Christ” shall be raised to
eternal life.
Before any can enter the mansions of the blest, their cases must be
investigated, and their characters and their deeds must pass in review
before God. All are to be judged according to the things written in the
books, and to be rewarded as their works have been. This judgment does not
take place at death. Mark the words of Paul: “He hath appointed a day, in
the which He will judge the world in righteousness by that Man whom He
hath ordained; whereof He hath given assurance unto all men, in that He
hath raised Him from the dead.”(972) Here the apostle plainly stated that
a specified time, then future, had been fixed upon for the judgment of the
world.
Jude refers to the same period: “The angels which kept not their first
estate, but left their own habitation, He hath reserved in everlasting
chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.” And again he
quotes the words of Enoch: “Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of
His saints, to execute judgment upon all.”(973) John declares that he “saw
the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened;
... and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the
books.”(974)
But if the dead are already enjoying the bliss of heaven or writhing in
the flames of hell, what need of a future judgment? The teachings of God’s
word on these important points are neither obscure nor contradictory; they
may be understood by common minds. But what candid mind can see either
wisdom or justice in the current theory? Will the righteous, after the
investigation of their cases at the judgment, receive the commendation,
“Well done, thou good and faithful servant, ... _enter thou_ into the joy
of thy Lord,”(975) when they have been dwelling in His presence, perhaps
for long ages? Are the wicked summoned from the place of torment to
receive the sentence from the Judge of all the earth, “Depart from Me, ye
cursed, into everlasting fire”?(976) Oh, solemn mockery! shameful
impeachment of the wisdom and justice of God!
The theory of the immortality of the soul was one of those false doctrines
that Rome, borrowing from paganism, incorporated into the religion of
Christendom. Martin Luther classed it with the “monstrous fables that form
part of the Roman dunghill of decretals.”(977) Commenting on the words of
Solomon in Ecclesiastes, that the dead know not anything, the Reformer
says: “Another place proving that the dead have no ... feeling. There is,
saith he, no duty, no science, no knowledge, no wisdom there. Solomon
judgeth that the dead are asleep, and feel nothing at all. For the dead
lie there, accounting neither days nor years, but when they are awaked,
they shall seem to have slept scarce one minute.”(978)
Nowhere in the Sacred Scriptures is found the statement that the righteous
go to their reward or the wicked to their punishment at death. The
patriarchs and prophets have left no such assurance. Christ and His
apostles have given no hint of it. The Bible clearly teaches that the dead
do not go immediately to heaven. They are represented as sleeping until
the resurrection.(979) In the very day when the silver cord is loosed and
the golden bowl broken,(980) man’s thoughts perish. They that go down to
the grave are in silence. They know no more of anything that is done under
the sun.(981) Blessed rest for the weary righteous! Time, be it long or
short, is but a moment to them. They sleep; they are awakened by the trump
of God to a glorious immortality. “For the trumpet shall sound, and the
dead shall be raised incorruptible.... So when this corruptible shall have
put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then
shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up
in victory.”(982) As they are called forth from their deep slumber, they
begin to think just where they ceased. The last sensation was the pang of
death, the last thought that they were falling beneath the power of the
grave. When they arise from the tomb, their first glad thought will be
echoed in the triumphal shout, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave,
where is thy victory?”(983)
34. SPIRITUALISM.
[Illustration: Chapter header.]
The ministration of holy angels, as presented in the Scriptures, is a
truth most comforting and precious to every follower of Christ. But the
Bible teaching upon this point has been obscured and perverted by the
errors of popular theology. The doctrine of natural immortality, first
borrowed from the pagan philosophy, and in the darkness of the great
apostasy incorporated into the Christian faith, has supplanted the truth,
so plainly taught in Scripture, that “the dead know not anything.”
Multitudes have come to believe that it is the spirits of the dead who are
the “ministering spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be
heirs of salvation.” And this notwithstanding the testimony of Scripture
to the existence of heavenly angels, and their connection with the history
of man, before the death of a human being.
The doctrine of man’s consciousness in death, especially the belief that
the spirits of the dead return to minister to the living, has prepared the
way for modern Spiritualism. If the dead are admitted to the presence of
God and holy angels, and privileged with knowledge far exceeding what they
before possessed, why should they not return to the earth to enlighten and
instruct the living? If, as taught by popular theologians, the spirits of
the dead are hovering about their friends on earth, why should they not be
permitted to communicate with them, to warn them against evil, or to
comfort them in sorrow? How can those who believe in man’s consciousness
in death reject what comes to them as divine light communicated by
glorified spirits? Here is a channel regarded as sacred, through which
Satan works for the accomplishment of his purposes. The fallen angels who
do his bidding appear as messengers from the spirit world. While
professing to bring the living into communication with the dead, the
prince of evil exercises his bewitching influence upon their minds.
He has power to bring before men the appearance of their departed friends.
The counterfeit is perfect; the familiar look, the words, the tone, are
reproduced with marvelous distinctness. Many are comforted with the
assurance that their loved ones are enjoying the bliss of heaven; and
without suspicion of danger, they give ear to “seducing spirits, and
doctrines of devils.”