Facts and
Theories as to a Future State
CHAPTER XIII
OBJECTIONS FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT
I NOW proceed to consider the objections which are made to
the views I have expressed, grounded upon the supposed plain teaching of many
passages of Scripture. It is a point worthy of attention, however, at the
outset, that these passages are, with few and slight exceptions, all found in
the Old Testament, and especially in three books which lie near together in the
middle of it (united really, I doubt not, in many respects) Job, Psalms, and
Ecclesiastes.
To show this I mention from Mr. Roberts book all
the texts upon which he relies to maintain his views of death and the
intermediate state. From pp. 40-50 of his "Twelve Lectures" (4th ed) I find
thus quoted Job xxxiii. 22-28; Psa. xxx. 3; xxii: 29; lxxxix. 48; lxxviii. 50;
Ezek. xviii. 4; Jas. iv.14; Psa. cxliv. 3, 4; ciii. 14, 16; Gen. ii. 7; iii.
19; xviii. 27; Rom. vii. 18; Jas. i. 10; Job. xiv. 12; Eccl. iii. 18-20; Gen.
xxv. 8; xxxv. 29; xlix. 33; 1. 26; Deut. xxxiv. 5,6; Josh. xxiv. 29; 1 Sam.
xxv. 1; 1 Kings ii. 1,2, 10; Acts ii. 29, 34; 1 Kings xi. 43; Heb. xi. 13; John
vi. 11, 14; 1 These. iv. 13; Eccl. ix. 10; Job iii. 13-19; x. 18; Psa.
lxxxviii. 5, 10, 12; cxv. 17; xxxix. 5, 12, 13; cxlvi. 2; Eccl. ix. 5, 6; Psa.
cxlvi. 3, 4; vi. 5; Isa. xxxviii. 18, 19.
He then proceeds to cite the
passages commonly urged against his views as fellows: Luke xxiii. 43; xvi.
19-31; Acts vii. 59; 2 Cor. v. 8; Phil. i. 23; Matt. xvii. 3; xxii. 32; xviii.
10; Prov. xii. 28: Matt. x. 28.
Thus, for his own. views, out of over
fifty passages produced, nine belong to the New Testament and forty-seven to
the Old. While out of the passages which he thinks might be adduced as against
his views (though scanty in number), nine out of ten are from the New
Testament.
But the disproportion is greater even than this, when the
real value to the writer of the texts quoted is kept in view. Thus even Mr.
Roberts can make but little of Jas. i. 9, 10: "As the flower of the grass he
shall pass away;" or of chap. iv. 14: "What is your life? It is even a vapour."
The other passages are, that in Paul (i. e., in his flesh) dwelt no good thing;
as to David, that he was dead and buried, and not ascended into the heavens;
that Abraham and others died in faith, not having received the promises; that
Lazarus was sleeping, or in plain language, dead; and finally, that those that
sleep in Jesus shall God bring with Him.
Really does it not seem a
question between the Old Testament and the New? It is not that; but still there
is a tale that these quotations tell, the moral of which will be found in 2
Tim. i. 10; where the apostle tells us, that Christ "has abolished death, and
brought life and incorruption (not immortality) to light by the GOSPEL."
That means that these writers are groping for light amid the shadows of
a dispensation where was yet upon this subject comparative darkness. They look
at death as it existed before Christ had for the believer abolished it. They
look at life there where as yet it had not been "brought to light." No wonder
if they stumble in the darkness they have chosen.
Roberts represents
the "logic" of the application of this passage to this question to be: "Life
and incorruptibility are brought to light by the gospel; therefore dont
go to the Old Testament for light on death and corruptibility."
It is very
strange that he should think he needs light on the latter point, for that
"death is death" seems to him an axiom that settles all. Nay, "life" also, and
what it is, "a matter of positive experience." It is the "aggregate result of
certain organic processes," he tells us. He only goes to Scripture to confirm
this, which after all we should have known without.
But the abolition
of death is clearly connected with the bringing life to light by the gospel,
and it is clear that the Old Testament statements must in some way correspond
to this. Mr. Roberts indeed would have it that the gospel simply makes known
"the way of life." But Scripture is more accurate than he supposes it to be,
and less plastic than it really seems as if he would like to have it. If "life"
is brought to light by the gospel, as in any and every sense it is, how could
death even be known fully in the Old Testament? Take Paul and Job, as I have
before said, and compare their utterances as to death, - is there no
difference? is there no light come for Paul into that land of gloom and
darkness which Job contemplates? Surely there is. And this is the story Mr.
Roberts citations tell.
Another passage furnishes us with a
further point about that old economy he needs to know: that by the hanging of
the veil before the holy places, "the Holy Ghost this signified, that the way
into the holiest was not yet manifested, while the first, tabernacle was yet
standing" (Heb. ix. 8). Mr. Roberts wants to know why the annihilationists
should have their attention drawn to this. "It is the very thing," he asserts,
"that proves their case. Mr. Grant contends that Abraham, Moses, and thousands
beside them went into the holiest (that is, the heavenly state) as soon as they
died; WHILE THE FIRST TABERNACLE WAS YET STANDING. The poor
annihilationists, on the contrary, accept the declaration that the way
was not yet manifested while the old economy existed, and that, as Jesus said,
No man had ascended into heaven. " But the fact of Abraham and
other saints going to heaven after death, does not imply that the way there was
made manifest in the Old Testament, i. e., of course to men before they died.
Nor do the Lords words which he quotes (John iii. 13) at all imply even
that Enoch and Elias had not "ascended into heaven." Plainly they had, and
therefore Mr. R.s interpretation of them is convicted of untruth. But the
Lord is speaking, as the context decisively shows, of available witnesses of
"heavenly things."
It was no question of Enoch and Elias, who were not
there to tell what they might know, still less of the condition of the departed
dead, but of there being no other accessible witness of heavenly things, except
Himself, the Son of Man, and yet "subsisting in heaven." "If I have told you of
earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you of
heavenly things? And no man [evidently, none here to give witness] hath
ascended up to heaven, save He who came down from heaven, even the Son of Man
who is in heaven." To make this clash with Enoch and Elias having gone there is
surely a mere straining; of the words, and just as much so to infer from it the
condition of the righteous dead.
Doubtless Mr. Roberts would reinforce
this untenable position by a quotation which those with him often dwell upon,
to the effect that "David is not ascended into the heavens."* That too is
freely granted. It is what the Lord says of Himself when risen, and yet He had
been in Paradise with the pardoned thief. This will come up again in the next
chapter, but I may say here, that the departure of the spirit to God is never
reckoned "ascension." We may inquire why shortly, but the fact may suffice for
the present.
*Acts ii. 84
The passage in Hebrews does not
then "recoil with singular force against" the orthodox "position." It in no
wise teaches that the saints of the Old Testament did not go to heaven after
death, but that there was no revelation yet of their going there, no promise of
it yet to living men. It simply means that the dispensation dealt with earthly
and not heavenly promises. Thus if the faith of a Job carried him on to a day
on which that Redeemer who he knew lived, should be seen by his eyes, it is to
His standing upon the earth in the latter day he looks. If Sheol,* the land of
darkness, lay between, certainly for him that was not heaven. Nor can Mr.
Roberts find such a thought. He does not indeed look for it, I well know. The
"heavenly promises" are for him promises merely of a "heavenly state," as he
might say, on earth. This is again the darkness of the former dispensation
imported into the full light of the Christian one. I cannot discuss it here,
nor, happily, need I for the mass of those who may read this.
*The Old
Testament word for hades, the unseen world. See next chapter.
But
such then as Jobs was the Old Testament hope.* Outside the present scene
there was little light, death a deep, dark "shadow," well-nigh impenetrable,
resurrection and restoration to a scene of earthly blessedness the tangible,
plain thing. Scattered hints there were, indeed, of other things. Enoch had of
old gone to God, and not seen death. Elijah in a later day had followed him. A
little gleam of light had broken in there. But still that was not the
revelation of the heavenly places and a portion there for those who believed.
Nor was death abolished, or life and incorruption brought to light.
*Some difficulty will be found perhaps in reconciling Heb. xi. 13-16 with this.
I fully admit that this passage shows that individuals had hope beyond the
proper Old Testament revelation. How they got this we hope yet to inquire. But
that certainly no revelation of it is given in the Old Testament itself, I can
only once again very simply affirm. Let my readers search and see,
Still they were not annihilationists, as Pharisaism, which the
people followed, shows. Something they did know: and with all their darkness
were wiser than those who have now turned from the light which has come, back
into it.
This even necromancy witnessed. Heathenish as of course it was,
yet its practice testifies to the belief which lay at the foundation of it. And
the bringing up of Samuel* is an Old Testament confirmation of that belief too
strong for any cavils of questioners to set aside.
*1 Sam. xxviii.
True, indeed, the departed spirit of a saint was not at the mercy
of a witch to summon into presence. And the appearance of the prophet threw the
woman herself into astonishment; but so God permitted Saul to get his answer of
doom. The language of the historian should be plain to any one who believes in
the full inspiration of Scripture that the woman saw Samuel, and that Samuel
spoke to Saul. Mr. Roberts may raise questions which our inability to answer
would not show were valid as arguments against the inspired words. But it as he
suggests, the nature of the apparition was that it was "the spectral impression
of Samuel in the womans brain reflected from that of Saul," how did this
"spectral impression" speak to Saul? Mr. Roberts would answer evidently
"through the woman"; but not so says Scripture. It is his own invention, as the
spectral impression is. Moreover his difficulty as to Samuel appearing in his
clothes, as that of others, that he is seen as an old man, we may answer by
saying that we know too little of spiritual appearances even to apprehend them
as difficulties. Nor does it seem one that Saul himself should not have seen
the spirit of Samuel, any more than that Elishas servant did not see the
horses and chariots of fire around Dothan (2 Kings vi. 17). How many similar
questions might Mr. R. ask about these, and find, or give, as little answer!
Then as to the "bringing up," which Mr. R. considers should be,
according to our views, rather "bringing down," this is his mistake, and we
shall look at it in the next chapter. While "tomorrow shalt thou and thy sons
be with means merely in the death state, or in sheol, as a Hebrew might have
expressed it.
I only dwell upon this to show that all was not dark, even
here, as to immortality. People may talk, as some do, of resurrection but there
is none, and the thought of it would only complicate the difficulties of the
case.
Without further preface I turn to the passages which they adduce
as decisive of the point we are upon, that the dead are non-existent or at
least unconscious till the resurrection.
We naturally begin with Genesis,
but here the passages produced have been already examined, save xviii. 27; xxv.
8; xxxv. 29; xlix. 33; 1. 26. The reader may refer to these (except the first)
for himself, as they are the mere chronicle of the deaths of the patriarchs,
"sober and literal," as we quite believe, and as is the fashion of Scripture
generally, and with "no heaven-going rhapsody," as Mr. Roberts tells us. There
could hardly be, as I have already shown. Deut. xxxiv. 5, 6; Josh. xxiv. 29; 1
Sam. xxv. 1; 1 Kings ii. 1, 2, 10, and xi. 43, all come under the same
category. It is sufficient for Mr. R. that he finds a text in which it is said
such a person "died," to find a proof text in it for extinction; and if it
should add, that he was "buried," then all dispute about the matter should be
ended forever. For it seems none but materialists ever speak of people dying or
being buried, or if so Mr. Roberts has not heard of it.
Abrahams
lowly confession, "who am but dust and ashes" (Gen. xvii. 27), which he
takes to imply the lowest materialism, may perhaps be left to speak for itself.
Of course that spirit of man, which sometimes Mr. Roberts reckons part of him,
sometimes the highest part, is here none whatever, or else it too is "dust." He
joins with this Pauls "in me, that is in my flesh," equally to imply that
Paul was nothing but flesh. On the further expression in the same chapter,
"with the mind, I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of
sin," he does not comment.
Outside of Job and its kindred books two
passages remain. One is Ezek. xviii. 4: "the soul that sinneth it shall die."
Here, as I have before noticed, the soul is put for the personality of man.
"The soul that sins shall die." Not a son for a fathers sins, or a father
for a sons, but every one for his own. This use of the word does not, as
Mr. R. imagines, conflict with its proper force when used, as it has been
proved Scripture does use it, for the immortal part of man. The other uses are
all secondary to and founded on this, of which I have at large spoken.
The other passage is Isa. xxxviii. 18, 19. It introduces us to that
class of texts to which belong the quotations from Job, Psalms and
Ecclesiastes, and we may therefore look at it with these.
These three books
belong to a portion of the Old Testament very distinct in its character from
all the rest. While the historical books are, as a whole, the language of the
divine historian, and the books of the prophets are still more directly the
words of Jehovah Himself, addressed through the prophet to the people, that
section of the Scripture which comprises Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes
and the Song of Solomon, is eminently mans voice. Of course I do not mean
that they are less fully inspired on that account. Every word, I doubt not, is
penned for us by the Holy Ghost Himself, so that we have nothing but what is
profitable and needed. Still, if we find, as in Job for instance we do find,
even Satan speaking, we do not any the more adopt his sayings as the expression
of divine truth. They are carefully registered for us with a divine purpose.
But we do not say "it is written" of Job, that if God put forth His hand and
touch all that he hath, he will curse Him to His face. That was what Satan
said, although it is written. So in like manner, when the Lord says to
Jobs friends, "Ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right, like my
servant Job," it is plain we cannot indiscriminately adopt their sayings, as
divine truth either. And when we come to Jobs own sayings, spite of the
commendation so far expressed, we find that he, too, in his words, had
"justified himself rather than God" (ch. xxxii. 2). So that neither can we
adopt without reservation his words either.
I have noticed elsewhere
something equivalent as to the book of Ecclesiastes, where we have the
experience of a man who had ransacked the world in vain for happiness, and the
things he "said in his heart" while he was pursuing that vain and weary course.
We know what was Solomons career spite of his wisdom, and this seems
undoubtedly to be his own conclusion upon it, under the teaching of the Spirit
of God, now become the "preacher" of the vanity of the world he so well knew.
Would it yet be believed, that this mans "sayings," penned by himself for
our instruction in the word of God, have been taken by materialists as the
sayings of divine truth, to settle it that men are "beasts," that "a man has NO
preeminence above a beast"?
The Psalms indeed are of a different
character. They are much more really prophetic in character, nay, in one sense,
fully so. Still their prophecy has the peculiarity, in which they resemble the
others, of its being the projection of human thoughts and feelings upon the
page, which, under the control of the Spirit of God, become the foreshadows of
another day and scene. Thus David muses upon his own sufferings until his
thoughts find vent in words, which guided of God become full of a deeper
meaning than any application to David could exhaust - prophetic utterances of
Another, more than royal, Sufferer. But that is very different from direct
revelation. It leaves the utterer to speak of things as from his own point of
view he sees them, even while giving them this deeper significance.
Mr.
Roberts has surely somewhat mistaken what is said on this head, when he asserts
that it makes these books "in fact of no greater value than a newspaper
report." On the contrary it makes them of the very greatest value.
Is it
not this, that all the difficult problems as to the world and himself also,
problems which mans heart ponders only thoroughly to lose its way in,
should be allowed once for all to find expression in the presence of God, where
alone they can find their perfect answer? Mans voice permitted to utter
itself thus, - its questions, doubts, objections, reasonings - before One not
uninterested, who condescends to take the place of listener, and does not
decide a case before he hears it: is not this worthy of God to give us? is this
of no more value than a newspaper report? I speak for myself only when I say,
that to me it is of the profoundest interest, and of the deepest value.
This applies of course mainly to the books before us, Job,
Ecclesiastes, and (in much smaller measure) to the Psalms. Now, as to the facts
alleged by Mr. R. against it. The quotation of Job v. 13, with seven other
"allusions " to the book, in the New Testament, he gives in proof of Job as a
whole being Gods voice. Let us look at these latter first. They are as
follows
Job i. 21, referred to in 1 Tim. vi. 7. (?)
i. 21, 22; xiii.
1-7, referred to in Jas. v. 11.
xii 14, referred to in Rev. iii. 7 (?.)
xxxiv. 14, referred to in Rom. ii. 11; Eph,. vi. 9; Col. iii. 25.
xli. 11,
referred to in Rom. xi. 35.
Of these references it will be seen that
Jas. v. 11 merely speaks of Jobs patience and the end of the Lord. 1 Tim.
vi. 17 and Rev. iii. 7 are very doubtful as allusions at all; Rom. xi. 35
refers to Gods answer to Job, which of course no one questions as His
voice; while the three passages in Rom. ii. 11, Eph. vi. 9 and Col. iii. 25 may
allude to what Elihu says of Gods not accepting persons, but are the
expression of so simple a truth, that it scarcely needs to consider them even
an allusion.
But Elihu himself moreover is not one of the three friends
convicted of falsehood by Jehovah, but one who is used to give Job his answer,
after they and he both have left off speaking. It remains then that in all the
New Testament there is one more or less doubtful reference to Jobs own
words, and this one quotation of the words of Eliphaz, in 1 Cor. iii. 19: "He
taketh the wise in their own craftiness."
Of this Mr. Roberts says:
"The speaker is Eliphaz, whose interpretation of Gods dealings with Job
was condemned. His abstract principles were right, though his application of
them in Jobs case was wrong." But this is not true. Gods own words
make the express distinction between Job and his three friends, that, whereas
Job had spoken OF HIM the thing that was right, they had not done so. All of
them, Job included, had erred in the interpretation of Gods dealings, if
that were all; and on that account, first Elihu becomes interpreter for Him,
and then God Himself speaks. But Job had spoken rightly of God; and his friends
had not.
Yet Eliphaz for all that could say many a true thing, truth
that doubtless he had learnt of God, and could utter as from Him; and one such
saying the Holy Ghost gives us certified through the mouth of Paul. This could
not certify the things which the same Eliphaz had spoken which were not right.
Even Mr. Roberts allows "there is not the same direct recognition of
Ecclesiastes." He thinks that "a remark of Pauls in 1 Tim. vi. 7 looks
like a quotation of Eccl. v. 15." It may refer to it, but it is one of those
self-evident, however solemn, truths, that need no inspired authority to assure
us of them. The passage has already been made to serve as a reference to Job,
and in Bagsters list is again referred, though doubtingly, to Psa. xlix.
17. Roberts adds, "Nevertheless the book stands on its own foundation, as the
product of a man to whom God gave wisdom," etc. The inspiration of the book is
not at all in question, but its character and purpose. The matter of
Solomons wisdom has been already discussed.
As to the Psalms,
they are undoubtedly divine, but that is not the question. While inspired
fully, their utterance, as already said, is so far like the rest, that the
point of view is that of a man upon earth, the horizon earthly, the thoughts
and feelings in accordance with this. Granted, fully granted, that the divine
is in the human everywhere, it is none the less mans song or mans
sorrow, human utterance out of a human heart, with only exceptional direct
sayings of God.
Proverbs again is most evidently human, however-perfect
and divine in its authority, as it surely is. Mr. Roberts quotes Heb. xii. 5
against this, halving the passage cited from .Prov. iii 11, 12, by leaving out
ver. 6. He can thus apply the passage as if the apostle meant by merely
quoting, "My son, despise not," to show that God in that exhortation is
"speaking unto us as unto children," and therefore that Proverbs was directly
Gods voice. The very form of the exhortation should have taught him
better, for it is not "my son, despise not my chastening," but the "chastening
of .the Lord"; and the apostles proof that Scripture in that exhortation
speaks to us as unto sons is that "whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and
scourgeth every son whom He receiveth."* The real argument is concealed in the
verse which he, for whatever reason, pleases to ignore.
*In Proverbs,
"even as a father the son in whom he delighteth." The quotation, in Hebrews is
from the Septuagint.
All the weight of what Job says is found in
the following expressions: that, had he died from the womb, he would then have
been lying still and quiet, he would have slept and been at rest, as an hidden
untimely birth, there where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are
at rest (ch. iii. 13-17); that he would have been as though he had not been, in
a land of darkness and the shadow of death, a land of darkness, as darkness
itself; and of the shadow of death without any order, and where the light is as
darkness (ch. x. 18-22); and that in death man lieth down and riseth not; till
the heavens be no more they shall not awake nor be raised out of their sleep
(ch. xiv. 12).
Now, as I have said, I am not concerned to prove the
harmony of all Jobs utterances with the actual revelations of Scripture
as to the intermediate state. He might have been mistaken, and that in no way
touch the question before us, or the perfect inspiration of the record in which
his words are found. They are given as Jobs words, that is all. As the
utterance of a saint of those old days, they contain, no doubt, the assurance
of the dimness and uncertainty which then prevailed. Contrasted with
Pauls language they show us death not yet abolished, "darkness" not yet
dispelled by light. Yet the words cannot be fairly pressed into the service of
materialism. Take the very strongest expression "I should have been as though I
had not been," with relation to the world and its sorrows, of which he was
speaking, it was simple truth. So as to oppression: "there the servant is free
from his master." He might have died under the lash, but dying, death set him
free. "There the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest."
But, you say. although that may be as regards earthly troubles, yet if
there were misery of another kind awaiting man after death, could he talk so
complacently of the "weary being at rest?"
Well, but to all that made Job
weary, the grave would be rest. And for aught else, Job was a saint of God
after all, and had confidence in God. He was not meditating upon the portion of
the wicked, but what his own would be; and though in death a "land of darkness"
stretched before him into which his eye could little penetrate, he had
something of the Psalmists confidence in One who would be with him there.
The sorrows of the wicked are not at all before him, but for himself the end of
all present sorrows.
Mr. Roberts may say, "There (in the grave) the
weary are at rest," but Job does not say "in the grave"; and he may think it
"obvious" that he means "righteous and wicked without distinction." I can only
say to myself it is very far from obvious. He was surely thinking of his own
sorrows, and as to the "wicked," what he says is, they "cease from troubling."
Mr. R. would give righteous and wicked alike rest in nonentity in the grave.
But is this "rest"? Who rests? Can a thing that is not, rest? I think not, if
words have meaning.
Moreover, ch. x. 21, and xvi. 22 prove positively
that it is in the track indicated Jobs thoughts are running. If
otherwise, then when he says that in dying he "goes whence he shall not
return," he simply denies all resurrection. But he is thinking of a return to
the scene before him. It is not an abstract statement, but one very simply
referring to the scene of mingled joy and sorrow, in the midst of which he then
was. And so Scripture often speaks. "Enoch was not." Is that extinction? No,
"he was translated, that he should not see death." As to the world "he was
not," but as to God he was, for "God took him."* Just as with Abraham, Isaac
and Jacob, who really died. To men they died; to God they lived: "For He is not
the God of the dead but of the Living, for all live unto Him" (Luke xx. 38).
People may say, that that means" in the purpose of God," but then if they had
ceased to be, He could NOT be their God, the relationship between God and His
creature must end with the being of the creature. That is simply and evidently
the Lords meaning. If to Him they are dead, they are no longer His
creatures, nor He their God. The relationship is broken.
*Gen. v. 24;
Heb. xi. 5. "Infants that never saw light," spite of Mr. R.s protest, are
beings that have begun to live, and his argument from Jobs reference to
these has no foundation. Besides, that is not the point. It is nonentity as to
the present scene, not absolute nonentity, he speaks of.
The
statement that Enoch "was not" he supposes to be a Hebrew ellipsis: a rather
vague but scholarly looking expression to cover a difficulty with. Will Mr. R.
define and illustrate it? But Paul has told us that Enoch" was not found," and
he thinks that will explain and fill up the ellipsis. We need have no objection
to the explanation, as it is substantially our own. From the human point of
view, Enoch "was not"; therefore, of course was not found; yet even in the
apostles words you must mentally supply "on earth," as we must conclude
that he was found, I suppose, in heaven. That is, we must still keep the
objectionable limitation, which Mr. R. refuses, and the apostles language
only confirms us in it the more.
It is strange, therefore, that when
we turn to Davids words,"while I have any being," and "before I go hence,
and be no more," and explain them. by the exactly parallel expression, Enoch
was not, that Mr. R. should tells us, "The fallacy of this we have already
pointed out," when he has actually confirmed the truth of it. For if "Enoch was
not" means, he was not found on earth, why should not the psalmists "be
no more" mean similarly "no more found on earth"?
Jobs words,
then, are no contradiction of what we have seen elsewhere to be the revealed
truth as to those departed. To weariness such as his a place of "rest," indeed,
was the unseen world; but "rest" is not extinction; and if it were a "land of
darkness" also, darkness and nonentity are absolutely contradictory thoughts.
The words of Elihu (ch. xxxiii. 22-28) have been already explained, and
to them I need not return. I turn now to Ecclesiastes.
And here all that
they urge has been already virtually, and, except one passage, actually
answered. That one passage is found, ch. ix. 5, 6: "For the living know that
they shall die; but the dead know not anything, neither have they any more a
reward, for the memory of them is forgotten; also 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."
Further on (ver. 10) in
continuation: "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for
there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave (sheol)
whither thou goest."
Now this is a very plain example of that way of
speaking, looking at things from a mere human stand-point, which I have before
remarked upon. The writers point of view is most evident. Nor was he
capable, at the time he had these thoughts, of any other. As to the dead
actually, he "knew not anything," for he knew not whether the spirit of man
went upward or not. This we have seen. He was not, therefore, capable of
looking at anything, save from his standpoint in the world. Otherwise clearly
he could not have said, "Neither have they any more a reward." That would deny
all resurrection and life to come, if taken absolutely. But he was looking at
the scene around, out of which men departed, and left no sign behind to
indicate that they had been; their memory was forgotten; their love, hatred,
envy, which had once made them conspicuous actors in the scene, had vanished;
and, in relation to it, they knew nothing, their wisdom and knowledge had
departed too. This does not mean, as Roberts suggests, that they "lost their
memories," or that they became fools; but they knew nothing of things taking
place after their departure,* nor could their wisdom or knowledge appear in it
any more. The closing sentence shows clearly to what the former part applies:
"Neither have they any more a portion forever in anything that is done under
the sun."
*Comp. Job. xiv. 21.
Therefore the moral is, Be
busy now; work ceases in the grave; wisdom for this busy scene there is none
there; no heart that deviseth; no planning head. All true in its way. But this
was mans musings, not divine revelation of the state of the dead at all,
nor given as such. Had you asked this man what he knew of that, he would have
said, as he did say, Who knows ?* "Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth
upward?" He saw the dust laid in the tomb, and that was all he knew. The rest
was conjecture, nothing more.
*"This," says Mr. Roberts, "is one of Mr.
Grants (we will not say deliberate but) staring [? startling] perversions
of fact. Solomon did not say, who knows, in reference to the state of the dead,
but in reference to the spirit of man in its living operation."
This, it must be confessed, is "startling." Let my readers look at the
whole passage, ch. iii. 18-22, and decide.
But that was only part of the
preachers utterances, the musings of his heart while vainly seeking to
"search out by wisdom all things that are done under heaven" (ch. i. 13). But
the time came when he had to own his inability to do so. To quote once more his
lowly confession (ch. xi. 5): "As thou knowest not what is the way of the
spirit,* nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child; even
so thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all."
*Here the
connection of the "way of the spirit" with the growth of the bones in the womb,
confirms the application of the former expression to the human spirit. It is
the double mystery of generation that is referred to, still as ever
unfathomable to mans science. We know not how the spirit nor even the
flesh of man comes into being. And death is necessarily a mystery, as life is.
Simple, but most important confession! on the dark side of which
all the passages are found upon which materialists rely; while on the other one
pregnant sentence at least is read, which, to do justice to the Old Testament
preacher, we should look at a little closer than we have done: -
"Then
shall the dust return to the earth as it was; and the spirit shall return to
God who gave it."
As we have seen, men seek to explain the "spirit"
here to be merely the "breath," as they do that which the Lord upon the cross
commended to His Father, and Stephen to the Lord Himself. Few simple minds will
accept that conclusion. They will scarcely see the sense of the return of the
breath to God, whereas, if it be indeed the spirit, such a statement becomes of
the greatest possible importance. It is what lifts the veil from the life of
"vanity," and interprets its true significance. It is the answer to the
doubtful questioning of the former chapter. Having come to the end of human
wisdom in the matter, "the way of the spirit" is here revealed. It "returns to
God who gave it." And thus there is complete harmony with that "conclusion of
the whole matter," which the closing verses invite us to "hear." "Fear God and
keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring
every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or
whether it be evil."
Now if that be the conclusion of the whole matter,
does it look as if the matter from which he drew the conclusion ended merely
with the blank and silence of the grave? Rather, does it not conclusively show,
that that return of the dust to the earth "as it was," is only what brings the
spirit, - not "as it was," but with the character acquired in its earthly
tabernacle, - into the presence of the God who gave it!(?)
Nor does
this involve, as Mr. Roberts thinks, that the "judgment of every work is going
on every day as fast as people die." But we have seen that, while the judgment
of every work does not come before resurrection, yet it is when we "fail," that
either we are "received into everlasting habitations," or to the prison-house
in which already the soul has the premonition of its doom, as the rich man his
in hades. Ecclesiastes has no word of resurrection. Death, the stamp of vanity
upon everything, is what is dealt with, and that which all mens reasoning
can so little avail to penetrate or understand, faith makes known in its true
character as the recall of the spirit into His presence, without which it is
but a valueless cipher, and with which it becomes almost infinite in value.
I now pass on to consider the testimony of the Psalms.
Some
passages adduced by Mr. Roberts I may be content with quoting. That "man is
like to vanity; his days as a shadow that passeth away" (Psa. cxliv. 4), and
that "as for man, his days are as grass" (Psa. ciii. 15). Statements like
these, which depict the brevity of mans life on earth, are not quite new
or unknown to believers in the souls immortality. And that it is a solemn
and unnatural thing for Gods creatures to be thus "subject to vanity,"
quite irrespective of what comes after death, is a thing for such as Mr. R. to
consider. He thinks that, if mans existence be forever, such words as
these lose force. But it is far from being really so. For the point is, the
wreck and ruin of the first creation by death coming in at all. This is what
gives solemnity to the brevity of his earthly history.
The other
passages are mostly of similar character to those that we have already looked
at. That is, they speak of man as connected with the world through which he
passes. Thus, "while I live, will I praise the Lord; I will sing praises unto
my God while I have any being" (Psa. cxlvi. 2); "before I go hence, and be no
more" (Psa. xxxix. 13) are expressions no stronger than we have seen to be used
of one who was translated that he should not see death. Enoch "was not," yet
even annihilationism has not yet taught that he literally ceased to be. To be
consistent. they should do so.
Or again, take Psa. cxlvi. 3, 4: "Put
not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help: for
his breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth, and in that very day his
thoughts perish." Is it not plain here, that, so far as the context leads, his
"thoughts" that perish are the plans and purposes in which he who was to be
benefited by them had been made to hope, and which the death of his patron
might in a moment frustrate and cut off?
Again, there is a somewhat
different class of passages, as Psa. vi. 5: "For in death there is no
remembrance of Thee; in the grave (sheol) who shall give thanks?" And again,
(Psa. cxv. 17), "The dead praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into
silence." Or again, that passage in Isaiah (xxxviii. 18, 19): "For the grave
(sheol) 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: the father to the children shall make known Thy truth."
This may take a little deeper looking into: but only because we are so
little accustomed to realize the point of view from which the pious Israelite
beheld these things. That "congregation of the righteous" in which sinners
should not stand, which the first psalm gives us, was what he looked for. A
day, as we say, millennial, - a scene in which righteousness shall reign, and
the earth be filled with the knowledge of .the Lord as the waters cover the
sea, this is what his faith anticipated; what ours does; but his, much more
exclusively, for his knowledge of heavenly timings was very dim.* To swell that
great hallelujah chorus, such as the last five psalms give it us, and in a
scene such as they prophetically anticipate, that were a godly Israelites
ambition. To celebrate His praises upon earth, to train up children for the
service of His sanctuary, to go up to that temple where the glory of Jehovah
visibly dwelt, this was with him connected with every thought of Jehovahs
praise. You see it in that last quotation from Isaiah: "the father to the
children shall make known Thy truth." Death would cut short that declaration,
and make those praises cease. Death could not in that sense celebrate. "Who
should give Him thanks in the grave?" Nay, the living, the living, alone could
do it.
*"According to Mr. Grants thesis," says Roberts, "the
knowledge of the Spirit of God is very dim. " This is neither truth
nor candor. Any one can see that it is not a question of the knowledge of the
Spirit of God at all, but of that of those through whom He was pleased to
speak. Plainly the full revelation of Christianity had not come. Death had not
been abolished, nor life and incorruption brought to light. Such knowledge must
have been "dim." Still, if dim, there is nothing untrue in their language; nor
do we "treat the Psalms as the private breathings of a pious Israelite," or
"refuse David as a prophet," or "deny his testimony."
Beside
which, inasmuch as length of days was one of the blessings of the law, to be
cut off in the midst of ones days, as Hezekiah was threatened, argued
with a Jew divine wrath. And this manifestly adds its gloom to the first and
last passages. While the 115th psalm is prophetic of a future day when the
earth will be purified by a judgment which will destroy sinners out of it, and
these, I have little doubt, are referred to in them.
But the Old
Testament contains brighter and more assuring passages than these, and with one
of these we may close this chapter: "The righteous perisheth and no man layeth
it to heart; and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the
righteous are taken away from the evil to come. He shall enter into peace: they
shall rest in their beds, each one walking in his uprightness" (Isa. lvii. 1,
2).
Now as nonentity is "rest," it may be "peace," too, to Mr. Roberts.
For we have seen the "king of terrors" sometimes putting on very attractive
forms. But those who cannot quite give up Scripture language as unmeaning, nor
put bitter for sweet or darkness for light, will be unable to accept such a
conclusion. As well might the "second death" itself be everlasting peace.
Go To Chapter Fourteen
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