SIR ROBERT ANDERSON
Secret Service
Theologian
HUMAN DESTINY
WHAT IS
LIFE?
To some the doctrine of endless punishment seems to
present no difficulty. Others again are so decided in rejecting it that if only
the dogma of universal restoration be discredited, they are prepared at once to
adopt what seems the only alternative, the extermination of the wicked. For the
one class these pages can have but a speculative interest. For the other, their
practical importance ceases at the point already reached. But it is only the
superficial who can ignore the difficulties that beset the problem which still
claims discussion. And, moreover, the rejection of the "wider hope," just
because it narrows the inquiry, deepens immensely its importance and solemnity.
When our escape from pressing difficulties depends upon a single door, more
care is needed than when we supposed we had a choice.
Two questions lie
across the threshold of the inquiry: What is the meaning of the Greek word
aiãnios? and, Does man by nature possess immortality? If, to borrow a
military term, we can mask these difficulties, instead of delaying to settle
them, we shall avoid an almost interminable controversy.
It is maintained
by some that aionios means age-long, and nothing else; but these admit that all
men have an age-long existence.* Others, again, contend that the word means
everlasting; but these insist that all men shall exist for ever. In either
case, therefore, the solemn language of Scripture, which declares Eeonian life
to be the peculiar blessing of the believer, loses all its significance, unless
we understand the word to describe the quality of the life, and not duration
merely:-
(I say advisedly, "not duration merely." "Eternal life," Dr.
Westcott writes, "is not an endless duration of being in time, but being of
which time is not a measure." And again, it "is beyond the limitations of time;
it belongs to the being of God." (Epistles of St. John, pp. 205 and 207.) But
surely endless duration is implied in this, though it is not the main element
in it.)
We must conclude, then, that in all such passages the emphasis is
upon life, and it is here our attention should be concentrated.
This brings
in the second question. The word immortality occurs but thrice in the New
Testament. In one of these passages St. Paul declares that God "only hath
immortality": in the other, the believer is twice described as a mortal who is
destined to "put on immortality."* It certainly seems strange, therefore, that
any who profess to follow Holy Writ should contend for the expression " the
immortality of the soul" more especially as man's spiritual condition by nature
is described as death and not life? What then is life? Here science can tell us
nothing. If we seek the origin of life, Reason answers in one word, GOD. Let
the existence of life be taken for granted, and then, no doubt, evolution will
offer to account for all the varied forms of life in the world. But until
science can get rid of God, the theory is unnecessary, and therefore
unphilosophical. It is the old question, Does the hen come from the egg, or the
egg from the hen? If science could account for the egg, it would be entitled to
put that first. But as we are shut up to believe in a Creator, it is more
reasonable, and therefore more philosophical, to assume that He created the
hen. This, of course, is apart from Revelation, which, for the Christian, puts
the question at rest for ever.
And science can tell as little about life
itself as about its origin. It has its definitions, doubtless, but these either
assume or ignore precisely what they profess to give us. "Correspondence with
an environment" is the latest and most vaunted. The table on which this paper
lies would soon be destroyed by the action of fire or water, but it corresponds
with its actual environment. If however we infer that the table has life, we
shall be told that a dead thing cannot correspond with an environment at all ;
it must have a principle of life to render correspondence possible. It appears,
then, that the vaunted definition deals merely with phenomena; whereas it is
life considered essentially, not in its manifestations, that concerns us here.
The fact is, biology can tell us about bios, but about zöe it knows
absolutely nothing.
Some will be impatient at a disquisition about life. To
them it seems the simplest thing possible : life is the opposite of death, and
thus the whole matter is settled. But this is to shelve the difficulty, not to
settle it. And the question is of extreme importance here. If we are justified
in taking life to mean existence, then death is the termination of existence,
and we are within reach of the goal we seek. But this must be proved, and not
taken for granted.
Our word "life" has to do duty for the two Greek words
just cited. And each of these has several different meanings and shades of
meaning. As already indicated, zoe is life in its principle, life intrinsic;
bios, life in its manifestations, life extrinsic. But there is more in it than
this. Bios may signify the period or duration of life; secondly, one's
"living," or the means of life; and thirdly, the manner of life. An example of
each of these phases of meaning will be found among the eleven passages in
which the word is used in the New Testarnent.
From this last use of the
word, as the manner of life, there is often an ethical sense attaching to it,
and this is expressed in classical Greek exclusively by bios; in Scripture
exclusively by zoe. Zöe, again, is sometimes the equivalent of bios, as
expressing the means of life; and our translators have taken it in Luke xvi. 25
as meaning the period of life. It is also used to express the final blessedness
of the redeemed or the sphere in which it will be enjoyed; the present
condition of the believer, who, it is said, "is passed from death into life,"
and finally and emphatically, the prince of life. The often-repeated statement
that the believer "hath life" does not mean merely that he is in a state of
blessedness; he is in life, but more than this, he has life in him. This is
clear from the contrast, " No murderer hath eternal life abiding in him ; "or
as the Lord said to the Jews, "Ye have no life in you."
It will be urged,
perhaps, that in all this the simple and plain meaning of life as equivalent to
existence has been ignored. But can life be thus taken as a synonym for
existence at all? If so, then the table has life, for it certainly exists. Or
the definition may possibly be amended by saying "conscious existence :" the
table has not that. No; neither had the tree the table was made of, though it
certainly had life; neither has a man in a swoon. The fact is, and it must in
fairness be conceded, that "life" does not admit of any such definition. If we
want its ordinary meaning we must turn to a dictionary, and there we shall find
that life is that state of an organised being in which its functions are or may
be performed. Death, then, is the antithesis of this. An organism is dead when
its vital functions have ceased absolutely and permanently.
It has been
denied that reason can tell us anything certainly of a life after death, and it
will be here assumed that it cannot. As we have revelation to guide us, the
admission may be freely made. Death came into the world by sin, and it is the
penalty of sin. If, then, we might conclude that death puts an end to the
existence of all save those who receive eternal life in Christ, the whole
question would be settled. But the teaching of Scripture is explicit, that
while death is a great crisis in human existence, it is not, as with the
brutes, its goal. "It is appointed unto men once to die, and after death the
judgment." Such is the testimony of Scripture. But the penalty of sin must
follow the judgment, and not precede it. The death, therefore, which is the
penalty of sin, cannot be "natural death."
The same conclusion will be
arrived at from considering the warning given to Adam in Eden. It was not
merely that on eating of the tree of knowledge he should become mortal. The
word was, "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." Is it
not clear, then, that the ordinary meaning of death is not its primary or its
deepest meaning? And further, as the crisis which we call death is merely a
change of condition, why should we suppose that the death which follows the
judgment will be anything else? These difficulties are nothing to shallow
declaimers against everlasting punishment, but every serious opponent of the
doctrine has recognised that they are of vital moment. The advocate of
"conditional immortality" is bound, not only to notice them, but to answer them
fully and completely.
Chapter Seven
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