Facts and
Theories as to a Future State
CHAPTER XVII
ETERNAL LIFE: WHAT IS IT?
IT will be remembered that the word used in the New
Testament for the life that the righteous enter upon as their eternal condition
is always the same word. It is not psuche but zoe.
It
ought not to be needful to insist upon this again. Gen. Goodwyn, as we have
seen, fully admits it, and tries to make capital of it in his own peculiar way.
As however Mr. Roberts has made, in his review of my former book, one final
effort to overthrow this position, We shall again listen to his own words about
it. He says:-
"Just as we speak of the present life under different words,
such as life, existence, being, so the future life is variously designated
according to the relation in which it is considered It is either psuche, soul
(Matt. xvi 25); zoe, life (Mark x. 30); or heemeis, we [!!] (1 Thess iv.
17), as the line of thought demands; but the hope, in all cases is absolutely
one and the same. The saving of the psuche (Heb. x. 39), is the
obtaining of eternal zoe, (Matt. xix. 29), by the us of
Pauls discourse (2 Cor. iv. 14)."
I feel as if apology were due
to my readers for quoting this or answering. Still as I suppose it seems
satisfactory to himself, there may be others also who need the answer. It may
be a short one, when the "we" who obtain eternal life are stated to be the life
that "we" obtain. But at least, you may say, "the saving of the psuche is the
obtaining of eternal zoe," is it not? I should suppose that proved that they
were different. For certainly it would not consist with Scripture to speak of
"the saving of the zoe" or of the "obtaining of eternal psuche." In Scripture
phrase a saved man "keeps his psuche unto everlasting zoe," and these things
are never confounded or reversed. Eternal life is never psuche. Mr. Roberts
would gladly produce the passage to prove it, if it could be found.
Let
it be remembered then that we are speaking of this one word zoe, when we
inquire into the meaning of "everlasting life."
And first, what then is
"life"? What do we ordinarily mean by it? Mr. Constable raises the same
question, and answers it: and he now shall tell what he believes it means. He
says (Duration and Nat. of Fut. Punishment): -
"If we were only to ask
what was its primary sense, we should have no difficulty. All allow existence
to be its primary signification. We will hereafter show that the primary sense
of this term is the only one admissible; but here we will not further insist on
it. We will here only ask if there was one universal sense attached to this
term; so that while there might be to a greater or less extent a variety of
senses attached to it in one place or another, still as accepted by all mankind
speaking the Grecian tongue, it had only one sense which was every where
accepted as a true sense, and by some accepted as the only sense. Here, too, we
are able to come to a certain conclusion. That sense of existence,
which is undoubtedly the primary sense, is as undoubtedly a sense accepted by
every Grecian speaker as a true sense, and by very many Grecian speakers
accepted as its only sense. Our opponents themselves cannot and do not attempt
to deny this, The unenlightened heathen, says Mattison,
understood the terms life and death as implying simple existence or
nonexistence.
And Mr. Constable argues therefore that so it must
have been understood, and meant to be understood, by the people to whom the
gospel was addressed, or if not, the different sense attached to it would have
required to be explained to them; and "of such explanation we do not find a
trace. Where we do find an inspired writer defining the meaning of
life he defines it exactly as a heathen would do: What is
your life? saith the apostle James. It is even, he replies,
a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth
away. Life, with St. James, himself a Jew, meant but. what it meant with
a heathen, existence."
Mr. Constable is one who, beyond most of his
school, claims for himself critical and precise accuracy, and he challenges
answer to his arguments. I have therefore so often chosen him as the exponent
of the views of his own class of writers. But we have had already many a proof
of his in competency as a reasoner. It may be the result of the unhappy system
he has taken up, which seems to cloud the intellect, as it certainly enfeebles
spiritual perception. Let us examine his statement however.
And here in
the first place, it is a little disappointing to turn to the table which he
gives us further on in his book, of the meanings of the Greek words which bear
upon this question, and to look in vain for this universal meaning attaching to
zoe!
His vocabulary is from Liddell and Scott, "allowed to be an authority
of the highest order," as he truly says. And moreover, he says, he appends to
the words "every meaning attached to them in the ordinary Greek language."
After giving it, he says, "we will thank our readers to look carefully at the
foregoing table." We have done so, and find as the result: -
"(zoe), 1. a
living or property, 2. life as opposed to death, zao (zao), 1. to live (spoken
of animal life); 2. to be in full life and strength."
This is certainly
remarkable. Mr. Constables primary, universal sense of zoe is not found
in a table furnished by himself, and certified to contain "every meaning
attached to it in the ordinary Greek language."
But this is not all.
Nor can we acquit Mr. Constable of the gravest charge that can be brought
against a controversial writer, a lending himself to deception of the worst
kind. The primary meaning he gives might indeed awaken suspicion by its strange
appearance. Not only is "life, as opposed to death," the secondary meaning, NOT
the primary, in his own table; but that primary meaning looks strangely also;
"a living or property." What kind of property? and why "living" instead of
"life"?
I turn to Liddell and Scott for explanation, and I find as
follows: -
" a living, i.e., means of life, goods, property; 2. Att. life,
opp. to death."
"A living, i. e., MEANS OF life, goods, property": that is
the primary meaning. Secondarily, and in the Attic dialect, one of the FIVE
dialects of Greek, it means "life, as opposed to death."
How different
is the whole statement of the case from that which he has given us. And here I
am arguing nothing myself; I am but giving his own authority.
Where is
"existence" as the universal meaning of zoe? It is not found as a meaning at
all, even in his own vocabulary! And even the meaning of life as opposed to
death is neither the primary meaning, nor the universal, but only in the Attic
dialect, one division of the Greek tongue out of five. To use no language
unnecessarily harsh in the matter, Mr. Constable has mis-stated a very simple
matter of fact.
But it is the New Testament use of the term with which
we are concerned, and we do not purpose carrying the examination further. For
my own part, in the case of a common New Testament word, I am convinced that a
Greek concordance (that is, the examination of the word itself as it occurs in
Scripture) is of more value to the Bible student than the best dictionary that
ever was. The word zoe occurs 134 times in the New Testament. It is in one
place rendered "lifetime" (Luke xvi. 25); in every other case it is rendered,
as it only could be rendered, "life."
And Mr. Constable may raise the
question, if he please, are not existence and life but the same thing? I
answer, the question occupying so intently the minds of many in the present
day, would have no meaning if it were so. We have already quoted Prof.
Nicholson to the effect that "no rigid definition of life appears to be at
present possible." I believe from the Scripture point of view indeed something
approaching a definition may be possible, but certainly not in the crude way
which annihilationists press with the most extraordinary confidence. "Eternal
life," says Mr. Roberts, is in the first place life in its primary sense of
being." Is that the primary sense? Can nothing "be," but what "lives"? It is
not even the sense at all, any more than is existence. Goodwyn contradicts
both; he says : - "I am now prepared to add that life does not in Scripture,
nor anywhere else, invariably mean mere existence; but is inseparable from a
condition or character developed by the action of the mind." If life is
existence "inseparable" from a certain "character," then it can never be "mere
existence". and so far at least the definition is correct. Let us examine it a
little further.
Life manifests itself by action: it is the energy that
works the whole machinery, so to speak, of the being in which it dwells. But we
may also, and in fact do more frequently speak of it as the motion of the
machinery itself. The latter is life phenomenal, what it is as subject to our
inspection, a matter of actual observation and knowledge. The former is
life potential, the power behind the movement and unseen.
But then we
also speak of life in a still larger way as comprehending the course of this
active existence; life as furnishing the individual history. And as connected
with this, although distinct, we speak of life as differentiated by its
surroundings: English life, American life, and even without an adjective at
all, of a young man entering upon life, life in the pregnant sense, implying
its full tale of hopes and joys, and cares and sorrows.
In the sphere
of merely natural things of which alone we are as yet speaking, the life
potential, according to Scripture, is the soul, or psuche.
2. The
phenomenal, physical, animal life induced by the presence of the soul in the
body, is also psuche.
3. The historical life is on the other hand always
zoe.* And -
4. Zoe, too, is life in the pregnant sense, implying all that it
introduces to.
The first two meanings are connected together and covered by
the one word, psuche, as the last two are on the other hand connected, and
covered by the one word, zoe.
Of psuche enough has been said already. Zoe
used with reference to the natural life occurs but thirteen times in the
New Testament. I give all these occurrences that we may have the subject as
fully as possible before us.
1. Life in the historical sense:-
Luke i.
75 : "all the days of our life."
xvi. 25: "thou in thy lifetime receivedst
thy good things."
Acts viii. 33: "his life is taken from the
earth."
xvii. 25: "he giveth to all life and breath and all things."
Rom.
viii. 38: "neither death nor life shall separate us."
1 Cor. iii. 22: "all
things are yours, whether life or death."
xv. 19: "if in this life only we
have hope in Christ."
Phil. 1. 20: "whether by life or death."
1 Tim. iv.
8: "having promise of the life that now is."
Heb. vii. 3: "neither
beginning of days, nor end of life." James iv. 14: "for what is your life? it
is even a vapor."
2. In the pregnant sense; only twice, but distinct:- Luke
xii. 15: "a mans life consisteth not in the abundance of things." 1 Pet.
iii. 10: "ho that will love life, and see good days."
*I leave out of
consideration one word, which, although it figures largely in ordinary Greek,
occurs but five times in the New Testament in the sense of "life," and here
always as a synonym of zoe in the historical sense. Its use lies outside of our
present inquiry. The five passages are Luke viii. 14, 1 Tim. ii. 2; 2 Tim. ii.
4; 1 Pet. iv. 3; 1 John ii. 16.
It is strange that Goodwyn should
say (Truth and Tradition, p. 18): "In every instance where zoe is used it is
applied to the eternity of God, of the Lord Jesus, and of believers in Him."
This is but one of the many careless statements to be found in these writers.
So far then we have been speaking of natural life only. I have been
thus particular in speaking of it, because the natural sense is of course the
primary, and furnishes the basis of the spiritual sense. We shall find, if I
mistake not, by carrying these definitions with us, that they will assist us
greatly in the apprehension of what Scripture calls "eternal life," which as a
term is used in a precisely similar way, a way which the crude conception of
Messrs Constable and Roberts can in no wise harmonize, much less explain.
If life then is not mere "existence" "eternal life" is still less, if
possible merely "eternal existence" It is a life begun here and now in those
who are nevertheless as mortal as ever, a consideration which at once sets such
an explanation of it entirely aside. The wicked who have it not exist "just as
much as those who have it, while they do not in this sense "live" at all. Let
us examine this closely, for it is the key of the whole position.
Eternal life" in Scripture is always, as before said, zoe, never psuche It is
presented however in the same four aspects as the natural life. Here the
potential life, the soul of this spiritual existence, is Christ Himself. The
phenomenal life, the result of His relationship to us, is that which begins
with our new and spiritual birth. The historical life is our individual course
on earth as children of God. And finally we enter upon life, embark on it in
the full and pregnant sense, when we "go into" it in the fast hastening day of
the Saviours coming. We must look at it in each of these different
applications.
1. Apart from the illustration, not even Mr. Constable
would probably deny the first sense, although he must needs be far from seeing
its depth of blessed meaning. Scripture is full of it; but it will suffice to
quote but a few passages. Thus the apostle speaks of Him who in the beginning
was with God, and was God, that "in Him was life, and the life was the light of
men" (John i. 4). In his first epistle similarly, that "the life was
manifested; and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that
eternal life which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us,, (1 John i.
2). So the record is, "that God hath given unto us eternal life, and this life
is in His Son; he that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of
God hath not life" (ch. v. 11, 12).
Now here to begin with, let me ask,
is it eternal existence that was manifested in Christ, and was the light of
men? But again, and furthermore, -
2. Not only has "he that hath the Son of
God" got life, but he has got it as a present possession and an abiding one. He
has no mere pledge and promise of it. It is as possessing it that he is in the
spiritual sense a child of God and born of God.
"He that believeth on the
Son hath everlasting life" (John iii. 36). "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He
that heareth my words, and believeth on Him that sent me HATH everlasting life,
and shall not come into condemnation, but IS passed from death unto life" (ch.
v. 24).
Is this only "the promise and the pledge"? Nay; for -
"Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood, ye have no
life IN you; whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood HATH eternal life"
(ch. vi. 53, 54). And again, "We know that we have passed from death unto life,
because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death.
Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer; and ye know that no murderer Hath
eternal life ABIDING IN HIM" (1 John iii. 14, 15).
Thus eternal life is
"in," and "abideth in" the believer he has no mere pledge and promise of it; it
is begun in him already. Listen, and the Lord Himself will define it yet more
simply: for - "THIS IS life eternal, that they might know," or better, "that
they know,"* "Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent"
(John xvii. 3).
*For it is a well known peculiarity of Johns to use
hina for hoti "in order that" for "that."
Here it is
characterized for us, and we know (if we know anything) the life it speaks of.
It began in us when faith began. It began with our new birth. It is not then
eternal existence, for still we die. It is not existence but a new and blessed
energy of good; an activity of holy affections of which Christ now known as
Saviour is the spring and soul. This is eternal life, if Scripture is to be
believed. The definitions of annihilationists fail hopelessly, therefore, here.
Eternal life is not immortality; it is not eternal existence, as they allege.
It is the life which we have as spiritually quickened from the dead.
3.
The outward historical life necessarily blends with the outward natural life so
that they cannot be really separated. The life of the saint and the life
of the man are here but one. For this reason no Scripture can be produced under
this head, which might not be fairly challenged.
4. But the pregnant sense
is, as we might expect, in fullest use of all; for our life points ever forward
to the time when we shall have it in all that it implies. And even as we have
said, the Young man "enters upon life," when he enters upon its full activities
free from the necessary restraints of immaturity, so we too shall "enter into
life," albeit we have it now within us. And who that feels the workings of the
life within most fully, but must look forward, too, most simply to that future,
and say to himself; without a thought of denying what he has already, that his
life is there?
Thus "ye have your fruit unto holiness and the end
everlasting life" (Rom vi. 22); "in the world to come eternal life" (Mark x.
30); "in hope of eternal life " (Tit. i. 2); "shall inherit everlasting life"
(Matt. xix. 29), and similar expressions, in no wise interfere with the fact
asserted quite as plainly, if not as frequently that we have eternal life
abiding in us now. These are only the various modes of speech which as we have
seen we use with regard to the natural life itself.
Yet these
expressions are all that the writers who hold what they call the doctrine of
"conditional immortality" can urge against the view that life eternal is what
is begun in us in new birth already. Mr. Constable calls this sense of life the
"figurative" sense. But it is no more figurative than is the necessary result
of using words pertaining to what is natural and applying them to what is
spiritual. And this we have always to do if we speak of the spiritual at all.
Eternal life belongs not to the sphere of the natural. It is what was
manifested in Christ down here, and is ours now in present possession -
spiritual not natural life. Hence we use the term as it in must be used; and
Mr. Constable cannot use it in his fashion without falsifying Scripture to do
so.
He does thus falsify it, when he says, "Scripture represents
eternal life as a gift not yet enjoyed by the children of God." He falsifies it
when he says that, "while there are no doubt many Scriptures, which describe
the believer as now having everlasting life, we are EXPRESSLY TOLD elsewhere
that this consists in having Gods pledge and promise of that everlasting
life; but not its actual possession and enjoyment." This is bold mis-statement.
Where is it "expressly told"? Mr. Constable cannot find it. He can find that we
are promised it and go into it. He can find that we have it now. He cannot find
that the latter only means the former.
Hence, his premises being
unsound, his conclusions must be. Eternal life is not eternal existence simply,
but something far beyond it, and the wicked, not possessing eternal life, are
not thereby proved to lose existence.
There is only one clause of this
argument remaining to detain us for a moment. The words of the apostle
(Col-iii. 3) are quoted in his own behalf by Mr. Roberts: "Your life is hid
with Christ in God." And so General Goodwin:
"Eternity of living dates from
the resurrection (John vi. 40 53, 54) and is at present hid with Christ
in God. Nevertheless the child of God hath it now, howbeit it
is in safe custody," etc. This is the way in which these men read Scripture!
Where is it said that "eternity of living" is hid with Christ in God? It is
said "your life is." And where is there a word about its being in "in safe
custody"? It is William Cowper, I believe, who sings,
"Your life is hid
with Christ in God,
Beyond the reach of harm."
But then that is not
Scripture. The Scripture use and purport of the text which Mr. Goodwyn quotes
is far otherwise. "Ye are dead" says the apostle," and your life is hid with
Christ in God; when Christ our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear
with Him in glory." The passage belongs to the first class of texts pointed
out, in which our life is identified with its origin. Christ is this life. He
is hid in God, and the world sees Him not until the day of His appearing. Our
life then is in character. a hidden one, we shall not appear till we appear
with Him. A life which draws its character from Him who is the soul of it
cannot be known by a world which has rejected the Son of God and found no glory
in the Lord of glory. With Him then we are dead. Our life is a hidden one, for
Christ is hidden. But it is hidden in God and so but waits for the time in
which it will shine fully out. Christ is to appear; and then we shall. This has
nothing to do with the question of security, or with eternity of living. It is
Christ who is hidden, and who is our life. Our life, therefore, is hid with
Him. But that is no denial of its being in us here, but implies the very
contrary. It is our possession of it that gives us this character and Christ
being the soul of it, "the world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not" (1
John iii. 1).
Eternal life is not then mere eternity of living, nor
does it date only from the resurrection It dates for us from that quickening by
the Spirit which every child of God has known; and manifests itself;
though the world (and alas, others) have no eyes for it, in every throb and
movement of the soul Godward; while we wait yet to enjoy its fulness - "In the
world to come- eternal life."
Go To Chapter
Eighteen
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