Facts and
Theories as to a Future State
PART III - THE ETERNAL ISSUES
CHAPTER XV
THE AUTHORITY
AND USE OF SCRIPTURE
HITHERTO we have been considering the arguments of only a
section, although a large and important section, of those whose views we are
examining. We are now to look at the final issues of life or death eternal. And
here there are two classes of objectors to the common views: those commonly
called "annihilationists" on the one side, but who prefer for their views the
designation of "conditional immortality"; and those who on the other side
advocate the doctrine of the possible or actual salvation of all men, after
whatever ages it may be of purificatory suffering.
Of necessity our
examination of these opposing statements will lead us in very different
directions: they unite only in maintaining the doctrine to which is generally
given the Scripture title of the "restitution of all things," and in certain
ethical arguments against the ordinary views. The stronghold of the first class
of writers they believe to be in the texts which speak of immortality, and of
eternal life as the portion of the saved, and of death and destruction in
various forms of expression as that of the unsaved. The stronghold of the
latter, so far as they take Scripture as their ground of argument, is found, as
they believe, in the texts which speak of the reconciliation of all things, and
in the expressions for "eternal" being not really equivalent to "everlasting."
As, however, we desire to take up not merely the arguments of those who differ
from us, but to show the Scriptural view from Scripture itself; and as the full
bearing of its statements needs to be considered, and not mere selected and
isolated texts, the consideration of these will necessarily render it the only
satisfactory course to meet the various arguments from whatever source as
incidental to the examination of the Scripture doctrine itself. This only I
believe will suffice him for whom Scripture has its due place and authority, as
what alone can decide in a matter of this kind. The truth will thus be
continually before us, and our souls be kept in the presence of Him who has
given it rather than in the presence of human thoughts and questionings, which
can be but this after all.
I do not shrink from the ethical inquiry.
But for this we must have first of all the distinct statement of the doctrine
before us, and then also Scripture itself must test the ethics as all else.
It will be worth while then in the first place to consider the
authority of Scripture in this subject of so immense importance to us, and
which involves not only our views of the eternal destiny of men, but of the
character of God Himself. And the question of its authority embraces another,
of what is authoritative - is it the text, the "letter" of the word, if you
will, or is it what some call the "Scriptures of God in their broad outlines"
in contrast to this? To which of these is the appeal to be? Are we after all
only likely more to lose our way by any minute examination of the words of
Revelation? Is the danger in too close a scrutiny or too little?
For it
has been asserted by a recent, but very well-known writer* that, because "we
are in the dispensation of the Holy Spirit" - "our guide is the Scriptures of
God in their broad outlines; the revelation of God in its glorious unity; - the
books of God in their eternal simplicity, read by the illumination of that
Spirit of Christ which dwelleth in us, except we be reprobates. Our guide is
not, and never shall be what the Scriptures call ‘the letter that
killeth;’ - the tyrannous realism of ambiguous metaphors, the asserted
infallibility of isolated words." It is true he tells is he is "quite content
that texts should decide" this, question; but then it is only "if except as an
anachronism, we mean nothing when we say, ‘I believe in the holy
Ghost’; if we prefer our sleepy shibboleths and dead traditions to the
living promise ‘I will dwell in them and walk in them,’ " so that at
that rate we shall consult them at manifest disadvantage, and with little hope
it should seem of any satisfactory result.
*Canon Farrar: Sermons on
"Eternal Hope," Serm. 3.
There is some little difficulty in meeting
objections which from their nature tend to deprive us of the very authority by
which alone we can decide them. For if we should remind Canon Farrar that the
apostle tells us that the things he spoke were not in "the words which
man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth," and that it
seems strange to make the Holy Ghost to be in conflict with His own "words" he
might answer us that we were doing now the very thing he objected to, and
settling the matter by an appeal to isolated "texts."
The only
encouragement to such an appeal seems to be in this, that he himself so
appeals. He himself believes in the promise, "I will dwell in them, and walk in
them," and cannot include this among the "sleepy shibboleths and dead
traditions" of which he speaks. Moreover he believes at least that "the letter
killeth." Therefore, it should seem that we might examine his own proof texts,
and see how far, if indeed he base it upon these, they justify his position.
Now it is the same apostle who vouches for his very "words" being
taught him by the Holy Ghost, who tells us that "the letter killeth"; and if we
would not have that in the worst sense an isolated text, a phrase wrenched from
its context and applied haphazard as we please, we must inquire a little what
its context is. We shall find the words then in his second epistle to the
church at Corinth (iii. 6); and with the verse preceding it runs thus: -
"Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves but
our sufficiency is of God, who also hath made us able ministers of the New
Testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit; for the letter killeth, but
the spirit giveth life."
If we look back to the verses going before, we
shall find that he has been contrasting the writing on "tables of stone" with
the writing of the Spirit of the living God "in fleshy tables of the heart." If
we go on to the verses following, we shall find him speaking of the former as
"the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones," given to the
children of Israel by Moses, and of the latter again, in contrast, as "the
ministration of the Spirit." And in the next verse again he styles the one "the
ministration of condemnation," the other "the ministration of righteousness."
We need not follow him further.
Upon the face of this then, the apostle
in "the letter" that "killeth" is speaking of the "ministration of death," and
that as what was written upon the "tables of stone," the law and nothing else.
It is this that he is contrasting with the "new testament," or gospel, as "the
ministration of righteousness" and life by the Spirit. The law, the letter,
killed: was designed by its manifestation of what God required from man to give
him the sentence of death in himself. "When the commandment came," says the
apostle, speaking of its proved effect, "sin revived, and I died" (Rom. vii.
9). The gospel on the other hand "ministered righteousness" - provided, not
required it, and so was life to souls, not death. In the one "the letter" of a
mere commandment "killed." In the other the power of the Spirit wrought, giving
life. Paul was a minister of the "New Testament," not the Old, "not of letter,
but of Spirit."
But then, I fear me, Canon Farrar cannot be acquitted
of the grossest violation of his own precept. He Is in reality using "isolated
words," words isolated from their context and applied to establish principles
with which they have not the remotest connection. He uses them to put in
opposition the words which the Holy Ghost taught and the Holy Ghost who taught
them; and to substitute for adherence to the inspired text a sort of mystic,
living guidance, which renounces the Scriptures as having any mere verbal
accuracy to be adhered to - "the asserted infallibility of isolated words" -
and replaces this with "the Scriptures of God in their broad outlines," not to
be too narrowly defined; "the revelation of God in its glorious unity,"
untroubled by the discordance of "isolated texts"; practically, anything that
we may please to call the teaching of the Spirit and the word, not to be
critically tested even by that word by which the Spirit teaches.
On the
other hand, we have been taught that "hereby know we the spirit of truth and
the spirit of error," not by any assurance of our own hearts, as having the
fulfilment of the promise, "I will dwell in them and walk in them," - true and
blessed as that promise is, - but as "hearing" or not hearing" the men inspired
of God to give us Scripture (1 John, iv. 6). We have learnt by the conduct of
the Bereans to "search the Scriptures daily" whether these things are so. And
from the apostle of the Gentiles that the "very words" he gives us, isolated or
not, are words taught of the Holy Ghost Himself.
Canon Farrar does
indeed allow us to "decide by texts alone," but it is only if we prefer "sleepy
shibboleths and dead traditions" to the living guidance of the Spirit Himself.
Is the word of God a "dead tradition"? I will gladly believe rather that he
cannot mean this. But then his words do wrong to his meaning, and we have no
guide in the latter. I quote from the appendix to his book another statement of
his views, possibly more calm and deliberate than that from the sermon in the
body of it:
"I care but little in any controversy for the stress laid upon
one or two isolated and dubious texts out of the sacred literature of fifteen
hundred years. They may be torn from their context; they may be distorted; they
may be misinterpreted; they may be irrelevant; they may be misunderstood; they
may - as the prophets and the apostles, and our blessed Lord Himself distinctly
intimated - they may reflect the ignorance of a dark age, or the fragment of an
imperfect revelation; they may be a bare concession to imperfection or a low
stepping-stone to progress. What the Bible teaches as a whole; what the Bibles
also teach as a whole - for History and Conscience, and Nature and Experience,
these too are sacred books, that, and that only, is the immutable law of God."
Thus it is very plain what Dr. Farrar means by refusing the
"infallibility of isolated words." For him there are many Bibles, all fallible
alike, and he himself is of these fallible Bibles the only apparently
infallible interpreter. History is such a Bible, written where and how, out of
all the contradictory tomes to which every day is giving fresh birth, he does
not say. Conscience is another, though it teach men to bow down to stocks or
stones, or snakes and crocodiles; conscience, which made Saul kill God’s
saints to do Him service. Nature is still another, with, perchance, a Huxley or
a Darwin as its chronicler and expounder. Experience, which proved to the Jews
of Jeremiah’s day, that while they burnt incense to the queen of heaven,
they "had plenty of victuals, and were well, and saw no evil." All these are
Bibles, upon whose imperfect and contradictory utterances the mind of man is to
sit in judgment - to decide what it can receive and what reject; and the
blessed word of God is to take its place among these, and man is to say which
of its utterances is the "reflection of the ignorance of a dark age," and which
"a bare concession to imperfection," and which "a low stepping-stone to
progress."
We may thank Dr. Farrar for his candor. It is certainly well
to know what Scripture is for him, and how far "texts" are likely to decide the
matter in question. Where he finds that prophets and apostles, nay, the Lord
Himself; sanction his view of the matter, it would be hard to say. There is
certainly abundance of proof of the very opposite, and in the mouth of one who
professes such unbounded confidence in the "illumination of the Spirit of
Christ," it seems a strange assertion that thus the Spirit of truth must have
taught error, or at least have used such feeble and imperfect means of
communicating truth, that He could not prevent its being mixed up with error.
We refuse this teaching altogether. We on the authority of Scripture itself
believe that "all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable
for doctrine, for reproof; for correction, for instruction in righteousness,
that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works"
(2 Tim. iii. 16, 17). We believe in a really divine revelation given to us by
One who cannot lie, and who does not for bread give us a stone, nor put
darkness for light, or light for darkness. We would obediently "search "these
Scriptures, conscious indeed of our own weakness and ignorance in doing so, hut
sincerely trusting Him, who assures us that "he that will do God’s will
shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God" (John vii. 17).
Dr.
Farrar speaks of "the tyrannous realism of ambiguous metaphors," of course, the
metaphors of Scripture. And it is an objection which we have met before, and
shall meet at every step as we now proceed, that the texts that are used in
this controversy are largely of this nature. Now the ambiguity of the metaphors
can only be tested by the examination of the passages in question: the fact of
their being largely metaphorical admits of no doubt. Mr. Minton puts this
triumphantly in his published "Way Everlasting." "Suppose," says he to the
person he is addressing, "we agreed to waive everything on either side, of a
purely figurative character, whether parables, metaphors or visions, together
with passages admitted to be of doubtful meaning on other ground than that
connected with the issue between us, and to abide by the plain prose statements
that form the staple of Scripture testimony on the subject - where would you
be? Simply nowhere. You would be out of court."
Mr. Minton’s triumph
is hardly so well assured; yet doubtless he has some apparent reason for what
he says. The pictorial representations if I may so say, of the eternal state
are those naturally in which we find the most vivid images of eternal judgment;
and these are precisely the passages which he and such as he have most
difficulty in reconciling with their various theories. The book of Revelation
especially, the prophetic panorama of things to come, gives them especial
trouble. The eternal torment spoken of there Mr. Minton candidly confesses his
inability to explain in any way quite satisfactory to his own mind.* But the
"highly figurative" character of these visions is the constant plea, and they
can refuse upon this ground what they cannot explain. To maintain the authority
of texts like these, is just to assert that "tyrannous realism of ambiguous
metaphors" against which Canon Farrar utters his protest. Yet the book has, as
few have, its inspired title, and that title is "the Revelation of Jesus
Christ." It is as if the complaints of obscurity and ambiguity had already
reached the Divine ears from out the unborn future, and He had provided for
them with the assurance of its being a revelation, a true unfolding of "things
to come to pass." I would ask them to mark this, that it is here they find
their greatest difficulty, in what Christ calls His "Revelation."†
*Way Everlasting, 4th ed., p. 60.
†For Mr. Dobney these are the
"hieroglyphs of Patmos." Mr. Cox would exclude from the decision of this
question not only "Revelation," but the parables of the Lord, and all the Old
Testament (Salvator Mundi, ch. ii.).
The figurative character is
confessed, but it is only what is found wherever eternal things are pictured to
us. There seems no other way of their being set before us indeed, than by
figures taken from the things around; and we may be sure that He who speaks to
us in them has taken not the most obscure and doubtful way to show them to us.
"We see through a glass, darkly," says the apostle. The last phrase is
literally "in an enigma" (l Cor. xiii. 12, marg.). Thus it is the Scripture way
to use enigmas to describe what otherwise it may well be impossible for a man
to utter (2 Cor. xii. 4).
Yet though it was of old the complaint as to
the prophets that they "spake parables" (Ezek. xx. 49), it is nevertheless
expected of disciples at least, that they should understand them. "Know ye not
this parable?" asked the Lord once of the twelve, "and how then will ye know
all parables?" (Mark iv. 13). Surely our shame it is to be akin to those who
seeing do not perceive, and hearing do not understand. The Lord does not trifle
with us, does not invite us to see what He forbids us to understand.* And there
we must pause for the present. The visions themselves will come before us at
another time.
*As to the doubtfulness of the interpretation of the
parables, Mr. Cox asks of Matt. xiii. 33, and Luke xv. 4: "Would it not be
quite easy to interpret these weighty and emphatic phrases as signifying that
the whole mass of mankind is to be leavened and quickened by the truth of
Christ, and that the great Bishop of our souls will never cease from his quest
of any poor lost sinner until he find him and restore him to the fold?" No
doubt it is "easy," if we assume the meaning of symbols as we please, and this
has been largely done; but the "three measures of meal" refer to the
meat-offering with which no leaven was to be mixed (Lev. ii. 11), and cannot
mean " the whole mass of mankind," any more than the "leaven" can ever be
interpreted as good according to Scripture usage (Comp. Matt. xvi. 6, 11, 12;
Mark viii. 15; 1 Cor. v. 6-8; Gal. v. 9).
Again, the "lost" sheep is the
"sinner that repenteth," and Christ does find all such. As to the prodigal
figuring the return of a soul from hell (the far country) it is unworthy
trifling, which stamps the character of the man who uses it. Think of a sinner
going away from God to enjoy himself in hell!
Go To
Chapter Sixteen
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