“The Soul, whose death ends in death ends in Death, is Immortal”.
Hear it, ye worldly wise! This is really the proposition ye affirm. Surely ye are learned dunces all.
He, then, that stumbles at the word, being disobedient, shall not see life—shall not become immortal, or deathless. He shall rise to judgment, to “be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy messengers, and in the presence of the Lamb, and the smoke of his torment shall ascend to aions of aions”, or to the commencement of the thousand years reign (Rev. 14:10); and being tormented in this, the Great Day of God Almighty, his torment shall be unto death ending in death, which, as a whole, the torment and its consequences, is the aionian punishment—the kolash aionios into which the wicked, with the Devil-Power and its Angels— are cast at the apocalypse of Christ.
If one man, or a thousand men, be proved to be constitutionally and essentially mortal, it is satisfactory proof to all but the theological sophists (who, being intoxicated with the wine of Babylon, cannot be regarded as compos mentis) that human nature, as a whole, individually and racially, is hereditarily mortal also. If, on the contrary, the race were essentially immortal; that is, that every individual of it possessed within him an immortal “vital principle”, which carried on all the functions of the body, and lived disembodiedly after death and in death, as the proper man, then no man should be subject to a death ending in death, or to exclusion from resurrection. But the testimony of God reveals that there are some of Adam’s sons, who, being dead, shall remain dead without resurrection to life of any sort, whether to terminate in corruption, or to be interminable in incorruption.
The reader will find the proof of this in Isaiah 26, which contains a song to be sung by the Jews in the Holy Land after they shall have been restored, and delivered finally from the power of the governments that now oppress them. In this song, two classes of the dead are treated of—the one comprehending the past and present Gentile lords, or Babylonian oppressors of Israel; the other, Jehovah’s dead ones, who constitute His Body mystical, at present within the gates of the invisible, and styled in verse 19, “thy dead, my dead body”. Of the former class, it says, in verse 14, “They are dead, they shall not live; they are deceased, they shall not rise; therefore hast thou visited and destroyed them, and made all their memory to perish”. They are not to rise from the dead, and not to live. This is affirmed absolutely—they shall not live in any sense. For the dead not to live, is for them to be the subject of death ending in death; and as these dead are not to rise, their death ending in death begins at the ordinary death of man, which is pre-resurrectional. Had the testimony simply declared that they should not live, without adding, “they shall not rise”, it would have been taught us that, rising from the dead, they should not partake in the life of Messiah’s cycle, but should die a second time, from which time their death should end in death, or be eternal.
This text of Isaiah shows us in what sense the Spirit uses “destroyed” when speaking of the dead. It is for them neither to live nor rise again. A man who is dead and shall not live, is destroyed. If he be dead and shall rise again to die a death ending in death, destruction rests upon him—”the wrath of God abideth upon him”; but if a man be dead, and rise again to live for ever, he is not destroyed, though he be in death five thousand years. To put a man to death is all that men of power can do. If he be a righteous man, they cannot prevent him rising from the dead; and when so risen, they cannot put him to death again, so that when they have killed his animal body there is no more that they can do—they cannot “kill the soul” or life. Not so, however, with God; he can “destroy both soul and body in Gehenna”.
“All they that are taught of God”, saith Jesus, “will I raise up at the last day” (John 6:44, 45). These are they who come to Jesus by the drawing of the Father, and are they whom the Father has given him. They are therefore styled “Christ’s”; and being Christ’s, “heirs according to the promise”. In the song referred to, the Spirit addressing Jehovah, afterwards manifested in the flesh of Jesus, says concerning Christ’s, “Thy dead shall live”; and, as the manifestation was by the same Spirit, the Spirit claims them also as his, and continues by Isaiah, saying, “My dead body they shall arise”. This is the antithesis to verse 14; as, Judah’s oppressors when dead shall not live, but Jehovah’s dead, many of whom they have slain, shall live: Judah’s deceased oppressors shall not rise; but the “One Body”, all the generations of which, except the one presently extant, are “dwelling in the dust”, and barred within the earth by the gates of the invisible or the grave—the “One Dead Body”, which the Spirit styles “my dead body”, shall arise—”the Gates of the Invisible shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16: 18). In view, therefore, of the victory Jehovah’s dead are to obtain through Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 15:57), the Spirit in the 19th verse addresses them through Isaiah, saying, “Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust!” This will be a glorious time for Abraham, and all the holy apostles and prophets, and saints at large. Till the resurrection, they are all asleep, and dwelling, not in “kingdoms beyond the skies”, but in closer contiguity to the scene of their future glory—in the dust of the earth. Daniel, referring to this event, say Many that sleep in the dust of the ground shall awake, some to the life of the age, and some to the shame and contempt of the age”; though returned to dust, and therefore without organism, they are said to “sleep”, because their unconsciousness, or know-nothing condition, is to terminated in a state in which they will be wider awake. “The dead know not anything”, say the Scriptures; “their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; . . . for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave whither thou goest” (Eccl. 9: 5, 6, 10). Now, thou is the second person of I, which the sophists say is the thinking principle, and immortal because it thinks! This I, then, when spoken to, becomes thou, and consequently, obnoxious to all the things affirmed. The I, then, goes to the grave in which it knows nothing, and consequently thinks not at all. Now, if it be immortal because it thinks, what is it when it cannot think? Must it not be mortal? The beasts think. Is their thinking I immortal because it thinks? It is a bad rule that only works one way.
Jehovah’s dead, then, are unconscious dust and ashes imprisoned in the ground, and said to be asleep because their unconsciousness is not final. They are to awake, and sing the song of Moses and the Lamb, saying, “Great and marvelous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of nations. Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name? because thou only art adorable: for all the nations shall come, and do homage before thee, because thy judgments are made manifest” (Rev. 15:3.4). And in view of this gathering of the nations to Jesus as their King, they also sing in their new song—’Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation; and dost make us for our God, kings and priests, and we shall reign upon the earth” (Rev. 5:9, 10). This is a song which they sing before the throne, and which no man can learn but they whose condition it describes (Rev. 14:3). To sing this song as a celebration of accomplished facts is the purpose for which they awake from the sleep of death; for hey cannot sing it till the deeds are done.
The awakening of Jehovah’s dead, who come forth as dew of herbs from the womb of the morning (Psa. 110:3), is at the time of “the indignation”. Daniel styles it, “a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation to that same time”—a time of trouble, characterized by distress of nations in perplexity, and the deliverance of the Twelve Tribes. To spiritual, or adopted, and native-born Israelites then living, the Spirit saith by Isaiah, “Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee; hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be over-past. For, behold, Jehovah cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity; the earth also shall disclose her bloods (the souls of them that were slain, in Rev. 6:9), and shall no more cover her slain” (Isa. 26: 20, 21).
Not, if these things be understood, but not otherwise, the reader will find no difficulty with such texts as, “Fear not them who kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matt. 10:28). This should be read in connection with verse 39, as follows, “For he that findeth his life shall lose it, and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it”. Thus, if a man fear the body-killers instead of the soul and body-killer, he finds his present life, but loses his future life; but if he disregard them, and fears the soul-and-body destroyer, he loses his present life, but finds his future one.
Now, in this there is no difficulty till we begin to reason from the English Version, which renders the original words of the two verses by different English ones. But the sophist will contend for the translation as it stands in the verse 28, because there is the word “soul”, which is so theologically indefinite as to leave him ample scope for disputation. It occurs there twice, and professes to be a translation of psuché; well, we have no objection to leave it so, provided that the same word psuche which occurs in verse 39, four times expressed and understood, be rendered by “soul” also. This granted it would read, “He that findeth his soul shall lose it; and he that loseth his soul for my sake shall find it”. In view of this, we might ask, in what sense could a man, or an immortal soul, in losing his immortal soul for Christ’s sake, find his immortal soul? and in what sense could an immortal soul be lost for Christ’s sake? The translators perceived the absurdities consequent upon such a rendering of psuché in verse 39; they therefore split the difference, and rendered the word “soul” in verse 28, and “life” in verse 39.
But we contend for uniformity in translation in both verses; and that if “life” be good for verse 39, it is doubtless equally so for verse 28; therefore, satisfied of this, we prefer to read the two verses as it follows: “Be ye not in fear from them who put to death the body, but have not power to abolish the life; but rather be ye in fear of him who has power to destroy both life and body in geënna . . . He that finds his life shall lose it; and he that loses his life for my sake shall find it.”
Now, let this be compared with Luke 12:4.5: “Be not in fear from them who put to death the body, and with this having no more that they con do. But I will forewarn you whom ye should fear; be ye in fear of him who with the putting to death hath power to cast into geënna; yea, I say to you, be ye in fear of this”. In this text, Luke renders Matthew’s phrase, “have not power to abolish the life” by “having no more that they can do”. This is strictly in accordance with fact. Human power can do no more than to put the animal body to death. They may burn it to ashes and scatter them to the four winds, but they cannot prevent the living re-embodiment of those identical ashes. They cannot “kill the soul”, as the Common Version has it. The soul, or life, of the incorruptible body does not reside in the present body; it is, therefore, beyond the reach of human vengeance. The Spirit of God will be the life of the Saints’ incorruptible flesh. They will find this life in glory should they be called upon to sacrifice their blood, in which is the life of the present body, for the sake of Jesus. But if in this emergency, they should prefer to preserve their animal body in life, then there is nothing before them but the looking for of judgment, which shall devour the adversaries; and to participate in which they will be raised with soul, or life, which God will extinguish in Geënna.
Life, or soul, which God destroys in Gehenna, is not “the life” or soul which Jesus said men could not destroy or abolish. The latter is his own Spirit—the vital and motive power of incorruptibility; the former, life such as belongs to living corruptibility. We have such a life or soul now, which Jesus says is destructible; for, says he, there is one who can destroy it in Geenna.
The destruction in Geenna is not of disembodied life or soul, but of life and body. Living bodies are the subjects of Geënna-destruction. It does not read, “Be in fear of him who hath power to destroy the soul in Genna”, as if it were the soul alone to be destroyed there, but, “Be ye in fear of him who hath power to destroy both soul and body in Geënna”; or, as Luke expresses it, “who, with the putting to death, hath power to cast into Geënna”; the casting into Geënna being the means of execution in the case.
The destructibility of soul by the power of God is an argument with some against its immortality. The soul cannot be immortal because God is able to destroy it. This, however, is more specious than solid. Nothing is essentially indestructible but God. All other indestructibilities in His universe are created indestructible by Him; they are therefore only relative indestructibilities; not absolutely so. The dusty elements of the saints are to be raised to indestructibility by the Spirit; but can it be maintained that their indestructible bodies could not again be reduced to dust by the same Spirit? By no means. The power that creates can also destroy. But while they are not absolutely indestructible, they are relatively so. In relation to every agency but that of the creating power, they will be indestructible. Immortal-soulists base the indestructibility of what they call “the soul” on the assumption that it is a particle of the Divine Essence—a part of God Himself. It is therefore indestructible, because God cannot destroy Himself. Here is the weak Point of their argument. It is admitted that God cannot destroy Himself; but He says that He is able to destroy soul as well as body in Geënna, which is certainly not hotter than Nebuchadnezzar’s furnace; but is hot enough for destruction of soul: the soul, therefore, that Geënna-fire can destroy is more destructible than the bodies and hair of Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego, which assuredly were not as indestructible as God’s own substance. It is evident, therefore, that the soul God is able to destroy in Geënna is not a part of His own essence or substance, nor is it of necessity absolutely immortal. If God had put into man at his creation a principle endued with eternal vitality, God’s declaration of ability to destroy it would not prove it to be mortal; it would only prove that He could undo what He had done. It would still be immortal, notwithstanding His declaration; for it would live so long as He forbore to exercise His destroying power; and if He had said He would never put that power into force, it would be absolutely immortal without reference to every other agency.
But here is the impossibility for the sophists; they cannot show from God’s testimony that He has put such a principle into man; neither can they adduce a revelation from Him that if there be, He will never exercise His power to destroy it. But the sophists of the schools err in assuming that soul, or life, is a self-existing principle. This is in no case true, except in respect to God. “In him is life”, absolute and underived. It is therefore written, “With thee is the fountain of life” (Psa. 36:9); “The Father hath life in himself” (John 5:26); and, “The Spirit is life (Rom 8 10) Hence, the Spirit of God generated within, and emanating from, His substance, is the vital principle of the universe, issuing forth as a river of water of life from Him as the fountain of living waters (Rev 22:1, Jer 2:13) This Spirit life is organizing, or formative, producing from the dust the forms termed beasts and men So long as it remains with them, their organs continue to play, and to develop their several functions, which organic concert of action constitutes the life, or soul, of the creature in a physical sense The forms are organized only for temporary continuance, some, however, enduring longer than other, according to the law of their organization, which de fines the life of the being according to its species At the expiration of the appointed time God s Spirit withdraws from the forms of beasts and men, their machinery stops, and its elements, un restrained by the Spirit’s action any Ionger, ferment until the forms are obliterated, and resolved into their original hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and earth Thus in gathering to Himself His spirit and His breath all flesh perishes together and man returns to his dust, which would not be the case if an immortal vital principal were planted in it, for this would counteract the tendency to decomposition, and maintain the dust in form and life for ever. But we must forbear for the present and leave the sophists till a more convenient season.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One