There are two principal views concerning future life. The one most widely held is that man possesses a soul Which is indestructible and which therefore survives death in another state than the bodily one which characterizes the present life.
This traditional view that man possesses an immortal soul raises problems concerning the conditions under which the soul will spend eternity. The most widely held belief finds a home for the righteous dead in heaven, while the souls of the unrighteous who have not sought God in this life were formerly consigned to a place of torment called hell. There has been a growing revolt against the idea of endless suffering for the wicked with a corresponding adoption of the idea that at last all souls will be saved. Hell is then regarded as a place of reformation with a continued opportunity to accept the grace of God. Generally, the issue of what happens to the incorrigible is not faced; it is more comfortable to think that . . . .
at last, far off, at last,
no one life shall be destroyed
or cast as rubbish to the void
when God has made the pile complete.
The believer in the immortality of the soul should, however, face the inevitable consequences of his belief; either the soul of the sinner continues without end, suffering the consequences of his wickedness, or it may be his ignorance, or there must be at last salvation for all.
There is another view, which we shall show is the Bible teaching. This regards man as a mortal dying creature, and that at death all activity ceases. Man is then quite unconscious; the body returns to the earth and man has ceased to be. Immortality is a conditional gift offered by God through Jesus Christ and is only obtainable by resurrection from the dead.
The essential issue is the question whether man is now immortal because he possesses a soul which survives death. The traditionalist and he universalize alike believe in the immortality of the soul, but differ whether the wicked suffer endless punishment. The believer in conditional immortality agrees with the traditionalist that only these who accept God’s salvation will enjoy the good that God offers, but differ about the fate of the wicked: the traditionalist believes they suffer endlessly, the conditionalist believes they die and are as though they had not been. The conditionalist thus shares in the revulsion of the universalize that sinners should forever be tormented, but has quite a different solution to offer as to the fate of the wicked. The issues are not usually stated bluntly, but the subject is of too great importance for the inevitable results of the traditional belief to be glossed over.
Immortality is deathlessness—a state of being where there is no fear of death, where an unending life is possessed—a life that will never end. That such a state is possible is abundantly taught in the Scriptures. But the immortality offered is by a resurrection of the body and a putting on of incorruption as the result of which life is endless. We only know life as something associated with an organism: it is manifested through bodily activity. A man is a living organism which is indivisible. Life does not exist independently of the body: the body is destroyed, life comes to an end and the man ceases to be. When that has happened the man can only exist again by a restoration of the bodily organism That is resurrection.
In the oldest creed of Christendom, called the Apostles Creed, although it came much later than the days of the Apostles, the resurrection is taught “I believe in the resurrection of the body.” In view of this plain and simple affirmation it is pertinent to ask how this teaching came to be changed for the doctrine of the immortality of the soul The answer can be given from several sources, for the facts are well known to students of ecclesiastical history. In brief, the doctrine of the immortality of the soul is of pagan origin and it was introduced into Christian teaching by men who had had a philosophical training.
The beginning of the change has been traced to the writings of Origin, who was born about 185 and died about 253. Tertullian, before Origin, had taught the doctrine as part of Plato’s ideas but made no claim that it was part of the teaching of Christ or the Apostles. Mr. Gladstone in a book, “Studies Subsidiary to the Works of Bishop Butler, wrote: “It seems to me as if it were from the time of Origin that we are to regard the idea of natural, as opposed to that of a Christian, immortality as beginning to gain a firm foothold in the Christian Church.”
Augustine (A.D. 354-430), was the teacher whose influence established the doctrine of the immortality of the soul among Christian churches. The late Dean of Chester in Great Britain wrote that Augustine “took Plato’s doctrine of the inherent immortality of the soul, disengaged it from the ideas of reincarnation (which Origin had taught) and gained for it the general credence which it has held to this day.”
Mr. Gladstone boldly affirms that the doctrine of the immortality of the soul is entirely absent from Scripture. Here are his words: “Another consideration of the highest importance is that the natural immortality of the soul is a doctrine wholly unknown to the Holy Scriptures and standing on no higher plane than that of an ingeniously sustained, but gravely and formidably contested, philosophical opinion. And surely there is nothing as to which we ought to be more on our guard, than the entrance into the precinct of Christian doctrine, either without authority or by an abuse of authority, of philosophical speculations disguised as truths of Divine Revelation.”
Another statement by the same writer is interesting. Some of the doctrines of Christendom have been defined after fierce controversy over a long period. In contrast the doctrine of the soul’s immortality was insidiously introduced: it came in by “a back door.”
“The doctrine of natural, as distinguished from Christian, immortality, had not been subjected to the severer tests of wide publicity and resolute controversy, but had crept into the church by a back door, as it were; by a silent though effective process; and was in course of obtaining a title by Tacit prescription.”
What, then, is the Bible doctrine? This is the same as asking what is the purpose of God. for His purpose is revealed in the Bible. There is an instructive passage in Paul’s last letter which was written to Timothy. He counsels Timothy to be steadfast in the faith, and to be a “partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of Cod: who hath saved us and called us, with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, but is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Tim. 1:9-10). Salvation is not of our works: for we can do nothing to earn it. It must be according to His grace — a grace manifested in providing a Saviour. The Saviour was foretold from the beginning, from the time when sin entered into the world and death came by sin The Old Testament reveals in successive stages the purpose of God in “the promises made to the fathers.”
But since the promises concerned the coming of Jesus, much that was only partially discerned became clear when he had come. God’s purpose was made manifest by the appearing of Jesus Christ.
All who acknowledge Christ as Saviour will subscribe to this; but the remarkable thing is that so many fail to see how God’s purpose is made clear in Jesus. Paul says this has been done in that Jesus has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light. It is clear that death has not been abolished universally. Death continues to take its toll of generation after generation. What Paul means is that in himself Jesus has abolished death; in himself immortality has been brought to light. We look then at Jesus as an illustration of God’s purpose: to find what is the true immortality that God offers.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One