SIR ROBERT ANDERSON
Secret Service
Theologian
HUMAN
DESTINY
CONDITIONAL
IMMORTALITY.
TIlE ephemeral literature upon the subject of conditional
immortality gives prominence to statements of a kind which, though generally
excluded from standard works, have no little influence with ordinary minds. It
is urged, for example, that the judgment upon sin was the death of the soul;
and, it is added, the meaning of this can be realised by analogy, for just as
the body is dissolved, and ceases to exist as a body, so shall it be with the
soul. But this is to allow ourselves to be misled by using words in a loose and
popular sense, unwarranted by Holy Writ. Scripture never speaks of the death of
the soul. To quote in opposition to this the statement "The soul that sinneth,
it shall die," is to trade upon the language of our English Bible. The word in
the original means merely the person, the individual; the father is not to
suffer for the son, nor the son for the father, but the person who sins, he
shall die.
Neither does the Scripture speak of the death of the body. In
our English version we read of "dead bodies," but not in the original. If our
thought be of "natural death," the body comes into prominence; if of "spiritual
death," the soul. But in either case it is the man who dies - not his body or
his soul. It is urged again that just as a branch may continue to live for a
time after it has been severed from the tree, so the sinner may exist for a
time apart from God; but that when separated from Him Who is the fountain of
life, he must, sooner or later, fade out of existence. Now, this of course is a
mere theory, without the slightest pretence of proof. Moreover, it abandons the
rival theory that sinners are miraculously preserved in existence with a view
to punishment; and it assumes that their ultimate annihilation will be the
result of natural law, and not of a Divine judgment. If this theory be true,
there must, of course, be an average length of life for the soul as for the
body. What the period is we cannot tell, but it must be more than six thousand
years, for we know that all who have ever lived on earth shall continue in
existence till the judgment. But when the judgment comes, the antediluvian dead
will of course be comparatively near the end of their sorrow, in contrast with
the lost of the latter days. The amount of punishment to be suffered by the
sinner will thus depend, not on the guilt of his sin, but on the age of his
soul at the time of the judgment. It is not strange that this view of the
matter is ignored by writers of repute. It would probably be found, however,
that the large majority of those who refuse to believe in what they call
"eternal evil" ignore all such arguments and theories as have been here
discussed, They rest their convictions altogether on the indisputable fact that
the Creator is able to put an end to the existence of His creatures. And such,
they tell us, Scripture explicitly declares to be His purpose; for "
Destruction," "Perdition," "The lake of fire," and other words of kindred
import, plainly teach the annihilation of the ungodly. This belief deserves,
and shall receive, the fullest consideration.
But let it be distinctly kept
in view that this implies what is called the "natural immortality" of man. If
by the law of his being he be destined to cease to exist, or if the
death-penalty of sin imply extinction of being, the question here proposed
cannot arise. They who raise it assume that but for the Divine interference in
judgment man's existence would continue indefinitely; and they undertake to
prove unequivocally from Scripture that the second death, unlike the first,
will put an end to him altogether. According to them the element of the
miraculous is not in the preservation of the sinner for the judgment, but in
his annihilation in and by the judgment. They thus entirely abandon the
position taken up by the leading advocates of conditional immortality, and
there must be no attempt to fall back on that position, if Scripture, when
appealed to, should refuse the testimony they claim from it. The single issue
now remaining is whether the Bible teaches the extermination of the wicked; and
the onus of proof rests entirely with those who maintain that it does. Man
exists; and as no crisis or change of which we have any knowledge puts an end
to that existence, we must assume that it will continue indefinitely, unless
the contrary be proved. But, we are assured, the Scriptures expressly teach
that the wicked shall be put out of existence altogether. This is what has to
be proved, and now we turn to examine the proofs. That it is to the New
Testament Scriptures we must look for a decision upon this question is a
statement so obvious that most people will deem it superfluous. We are told,
however, that "in the Hebrew tongue there are no less than fifty roots,
meaning, habitually or occasionally, to destroy; most of which are used in the
Old Testament to specify the ultimate doom of the wicked." A dictum of this
kind is well fitted to overwhelm ordinary readers, who would never dream that
an author of repute, writing on such solemn subjects, could make a statement
wholly unfounded. But will the reader take up his Bible, and with the aid of a
concordance seek out in the Hebrew Scriptures the more than fifty passages in
which "the ultimate doom of the wicked" is "specified." His labours will lead
to a startling result. Can he find ten such passages? Can he find FIVE? If his
list should be a much longer one than is here anticipated, a glance at a Hebrew
concordance will satisfy him that the same words which, as he supposes,
describe eternal judgment, are elsewhere used of death, or of some other
temporal judgment. And he will find further that the extremely rare passages
(such as Daniel xii. 2), which admittedly relate to the final state, are
precisely those which the advocates of eternal punishment lay stress upon to
prove their doctrine.
Daniel's prophecy above referred to is the only
passage in the Old Testament which plainly announces the resurrection of the
wicked. And when in the Epistle of Jude the inspired writer seeks a prophecy of
the great judgment to come, he finds it in the words of Enoch, outside the
canon altogether. Account for it as we may, the silence of the Old Testament
Scriptures as to the final state is one of the most striking features of the
revelation. It is not merely "life and immortality" which have been brought to
light by the gospel; it is there also that the dark alternative has been
plainly revealed. But even those who would reject the position here assumed as
regards the scope of the Old Testament, would freely admit that the ultimate
appeal must be to the New.
An admission which fairness demands may somewhat
clear the ground. The language of the New Testament describing the destruction
of the lost is perfectly consistent with the doctrine of conditional
immortality. And further, this is all that needs to be proved by authors such
as those that have here been quoted, assuming always the validity and success
of the arguments on which their position rests. But that is not the question
here. These arguments have been examined, and they have been found, not only
fallacious, but destructive of "the faith once delivered." The question now is,
whether those who reject these reasonings can apart from them altogether find
proof in the Scripture that the doom of the wicked is annihilation. With some,
this question will resolve itself into an inquiry whether the word destruction
correctly expresses the Greek original in the passages where it is used. But
this will not bear investigation. Extinction or annihilation is not necessarily
implied in the word at all. So far from this being its primary meaning, it is a
very remote signification. In the classical use of the word, to destroy a thing
is to do it irreparable injury, to unfit it permanently for the purpose for
which it was intended. Its meaning as used of a person may be illustrated by a
quotation which ought to be familiar to all who speak the English tongue-" No
freeman shall be taken or imprisoned, or be disseised of his freehold or
liberties or free customs, or be outlawed or exiled or any otherwise destroyed,
but by lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land." According to
Magna Charta, then, to drive a man from his home, to deprive him of his
property, or to shut him up in prison, is to destroy him. The thought that we
would convey by ruin our ancestors expressed by destroy. The word, therefore,
may be fitly used to describe the doom of the wicked, whatever that doom may
be. But the meaning of a word depends upon the use of it. Judged by this test,
what is the force of the expression in the New Testament?
There are ten
words rendered destroy in the Authorised Version, and three of these occur also
in the substantive form as destruction. A full list of these words will be
found in the Appendix; but there are only three of them which need be noticed
here, as these alone are used to describe the final state of the lost.
We
read in 2 Thessalonians ii. 8, that at His coming the Lord shall destroy the
Lawless One, the Antichrist. The word here used (katageo) occurs again
in Hebrews ii. 14 of the destruction of the Devil at and by the death of
Christ. It means to render powerless, or useless, or inoperative (Rom iii. 3,
31, ex. gr.), and hence "to do away," or "destroy," in the Magna Charta sense.
The same word is used of death in i Corinthians xv. 26 and 2 Timothy 3 10. For
the believer, death was "destroyed" de jure at the cross, and will be
"abolished" de facto in the glory. The thought of annihilation cannot be
imported into this word at all.
The next word, a very much stronger term
for "destruction," is used for "natural death" in the only passage where it
occurs as a verb. Four times only it is used as a noun (olethros), and
in each of these the word ruin would exactly convey the thought intended. In 1
Corinthians v. 5, a certain person is delivered to Satan "for the destruction
of the flesh," albeit we find in 2 Corinthians ii. 6 that this same person,
having profited by his "punishment," was restored to the fellowship of the
Church. In i Thessalonians v. 3 we are told that at the advent of Christ
"sudden destruction" shall come upon the ungodly. Is this annihilation? By no
means, for, as Scripture elsewhere will tell us, they shall be "reserved to the
day of judgment to be punished." The same remark applies to the statement in 2
Thessalonians i. 9. And, moreover, it is "everlasting destruction from the face
of the Lord": it is banishment and not annihilation which characterises the
ruin. In the last remaining passage where this word occurs, St. Paul dedares
that the lusts begotten of money-worship "drown men in destruction and
perdition." Is this annihilation? And yet the Greek language contains no
stronger terms to express the idea.
The word rendered "perdition" in the
verse just quoted is the last which claims mention here. It is perhaps the most
important of all. The noun occurs twenty times, the verb ninety-two times, in
the New Testament. A reference to the Concordance will show that it is
sometimes used as a synonym for death in the ordinary sense, and in several
passages it describes the prresent state of the impenitent. Christ came "to
save that which was lost." In the parables, the sheep was lost, the piece of
silver was lost, the prodigal son was lost. So in every passage where the
subject or the context enables us to fix the meaning with certainty, the word
means a condition of existence, not a ceasing to exist.
He who gives a cup
of cold water to a disciple "shall in no wise lose his reward." Christ was "not
sent but unto the lost sheep of the House of Israel." If a man put new wine
into old bottles "the bottles will be marred."
"The thief cometh not, but
for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy." In the Appendix will be found a
list including every passage where this word occurs, and the reader can judge
for himself whether in its use in Scripture it means annihilation. And let it
not be forgotten that if the words here noticed fail to convey that idea, the
Greek language has none other to express it.
But the lake of fire - is not
that annihilation? How can any creature live in the midst of fire? The question
need not be discussed; neither need we consider whether fire be here a figure,
as elsewhere in Scripture, to express fierce trouble and judgment. These are
speculative inquiries. The practical question which concerns us is settled
beyond dispute by the plain testimony of Scripture. In the judgment scene of
the 25th chapter of Matthew the "eternal fire" is expressly called "eternal
punishment"; and though the word rendered "punishment" be denied its classical
meaning of corrective discipline, it cannot possibly signify annihilation.
The Lord's words in the narrative of Lazarus and Dives are plainer still. The
sinner is there represented as in a condition of conscious and active existence
in hell. And still more definite is the language of the very Scripture where
the lake of fire is mentioned. The Devil is to be cast into the lake of fire.
This, therefore, must be the "fire prepared for the Devil," spoken of in
Matthew xxv. 4!. And it is declared that the Devil, the beast, and the false
prophet shall be there "tormented for ever and ever." If such language can be
construed to signify sudden annihilation, words may mean anything. This,
moreover, is what Scripture declares will be "the second death."
Chapter Ten
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