Facts and
Theories as to a Future State
CHAPTER IV
THE SPIRIT OF MAN
THE second application of the word "spirit" is to angelic
beings, and that whether "holy" or "unclean."
The application of the word
in this way is again denied by Thomasism as to the latter class, but this is
scarcely the place to examine what they say on this head. It will suffice for
our present purpose that there are spirits whose existence as separate
personalities cannot be denied. And if this be so, there is no reason, at least
beforehand, why man’s spirit also should not be an individuality, a real
and living entity, though in him united to a body which is of dust.*
*Roberts asserts that the angels are "visible, glorious, incorruptible,
corporeal beings," man’s spirit being the opposite of all this.
But
(1) The simple question is as to the existence of individual "spirits" which is
acknowledged. Difference of condition cannot alter the argument from this. (2.)
The visibility of the human spirit seems much on a par with that of angels.
Neither is ordinarily seen (compare 2 Kings vi. 17). Both have been. (3.) How
man’s spirit is "decaying," Mr. R. must explain. (4.) Corporeality is not
proved for angels by examples in which God (as in Gen. xviii. and xxxii.), or
angel appeared as men. This is not manifestation of angelic natures, but the
assumption of human form by these. There may be mystery in this, no doubt. We
soon touch the bounds of our knowledge, that is all.
And this is
the third application of the word to which we must now devote particular
attention.
A cloud of dust is here endeavoured to be raised by the
assertion of the wonderful variety of meanings given to the word. Yet, if we
take the language of our common English version as a guide, and refer to the
passages in which it relates to man, we find, as the translation of the Old
Testament Hebrew word, but five words used: "breath," "spirit," "anger,"
"courage," "mind." And of the New Testament Greek word corresponding to it
nothing but "ghost" or "spirit" (which everybody knows to be intended for the
same thing) and once " life," wrongly, in Rev. xiii. 15, where it ought to be
rather "breath." This looks more like uniformity in the matter, and a common
idea running throughout, than some would wish to have us suppose. Of course I
do not mean to deny that there are various secondary applications of the word
"spirit" itself. This concerns us the less because there is no doubt of the
primary meaning of the English word. But surely the greater the variety of
meaning, the more needful to look for the key (which must be somewhere), the
possession of which will enable us to find harmony in these various uses of the
word instead of discord.
The fact is, that the only key to this hidden
harmony is in an application of the word which these writers almost to a man
reject, viz., to a real intelligent entity* in the compound nature of man, of
all men as such, "the spirit of man, is in him" placed at the head of; as well
as in connection with, his other constituent parts by the apostle, where he
speaks to the Thessalonians of the sanctification of their "whole spirit and
soul and body." Let us take up the proofs of this, examining them carefully as
the importance of the subject demands, and submit the separate points to be
examined, one by one, to the test which Annihilationists themselves appeal to -
the judgment of the inspired word.
*Roberts tries to show this cannot
be the key by inserting "intelligent entity" in place of "spirit" in such
passages as 1 Kings 8: 5,"There was no more intelligent entity in her," etc.
This may do to cause a laugh, but it is in fact mere childish absurdity. There
would be no secondary meanings at all, if the primary one could be inserted
instead of them.
How the key above mentioned does "fit the lock all
round," will be seen afterward, chap. vi. That Mr. Roberts’ key does not
may be easily seen by the meanings assigned to "spirit" in various connections
by himself and his leader, Dr. Thomas. In p. 23 of "Man Mortal," he defines it
as "mind"; p. 30, "breath of life"; p. 54, "abstract "energy": p. 66 "life"; p.
67, "conscience"; while Dr. Thomas says that the "spirits in prison" (1 Peter
iii.) means "bodies."
On the other hand, the body is thus, for Dr.
Thomas, body, and soul, and spirit.
Now it is but quoting Scripture to
speak of the "spirit of man which is in him" (1 Cor. ii. 11), and of the
"spirits of men" (Heb. xii. 23). And observe, before we pass on, one fact here.
Scripture says "the spirit of man." It does not say " the spirit" but "the
spirits of men." Annihilationists tell us (or many of them) that "spirit" is a
universal principle of life, lent to man indeed in common with the beast, but
forming no real part of himself, like the air he breathes, and in which Dr.
Thomas says it is contained. Now, if this be so, we might as well talk about
the breaths of men as of their spirits Yet every one would perceive the
incongruity of the former expression. We say "the breath of men," just because
it is one common breath they all breathe, but it is NOT one common spirit they
all have, and therefore we speak of their "spirits," because each has his own,
and it is a separate entity in each one.*
*This is with Mr. Roberts
another of those "inevitable fictions" in which he so largely deals. The
spirits of men are with him not separate entities, but only "inevitably
conceived" of as such. "Just as there is primarily but one life, the
self-existing life of the Eternal Father, and yet we talk of the lives of the
creatures He has brought into being"! Is it then only "inevitably conceived"
that the lives of His creatures are separate from His own? Are they not
actually separate existences?
Again he says," As reasonable would it be
for Mr. Grant to say that because we have separate ‘fleshes,’
therefore it is not one common flesh we all have." Does not Mr. R. confound
flesh and body somewhat? Have we separate "fleshes"? The argument and the
English are alike new. Separate bodies we have, and not one common body. One
common flesh we have, and therefore not separate fleshes.
Mr.
Constable’s identification of it with the "breath of life" is therefore
not possible. His view is only in point of fact Thomasism on a somewhat higher
plane, as he makes the breath of life and the Spirit of God also identical,
quoting the very same passages for it as we have already considered with
reference to Mr. Roberts. He adduces also Bishop Horsley’s opinion, that
no one "who compares Gen. ii. 7 and Eccl. xii. 7, can doubt that the
‘breath of life’ which God ‘breathes into the nostrils’ of
man in the Book of Genesis is the very same thing with the ‘spirit which
God gave’ in the Book of Ecclesiastes." To which it is enough to answer
that we doubt. Neither Horsley nor himself give any proof of this from the
passages in question, and the subject will come up hereafter. But in the next
place Mr. Constable avails himself of "Hebrew parallelism" to the full extent
that Mr. Roberts does. "All the while my breath is in me, and the Spirit of God
is in my nostrils,* he thinks conclusive. It may be doubtless for those who
know no personal Spirit of God; and it seems as if Mr. Constable had got as low
as this. The answer has been already given, and to it we need only now refer.
Similarly Job xxxiv. 14 has been considered; but how he can quote "his spirit
and his breath" to show that the two are one is hard to understand. The
contrary would seem self-evident.
*Job xxvii. 3.
Hebrew
parallelism is again made to do duty in interpreting Isaiah xlii. 5, lvii. 16.
Mr. Constable would have it that Parallelism consists in merely using
synonymous expressions in the "parallel" sentences. This is a false and
unworthy conception of it, which would reduce it to mere tautology. It is not
so, as every verse in which it is used bears witness. How unworthy a repetition
would it be to make Isaiah say, as Mr. C. would: "He that giveth breath to the
people upon it, and breath (spirit) to them that walk therein."* Yet these are
proofs, he considers, that establish the identity of the breath of life with
the Spirit.
*I reserve the quotation of Isaiah lvii. 16, until we come
to consider the word found there - neshama.
Now Scripture speaks of
the spirit of man being not only, as we have seen, a separate entity in each
individual, which the breath of life is not, but (as the breath of life clearly
is not) a thing formed within him (Zech. xii. 1): "The burden of the word of
the Lord for Israel, saith the Lord, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and
layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him."
Thus, along with the formation of the heavens and the earth, as of equal
importance with these (the body being moreover passed over in the matter) there
is put by the inspired writer this formation of the spirit of man. And this is
the complete upsetting of the materialistic theory. The spirit of man is formed
within him. It is a separate entity then in each individual man, not (like the
breath of life) a common principle shared by all.*
*Roberts admits
indeed here "a common spirit distributed according to the will of the Creator,
and formed into the spirits of men." But he has rendered this impossible in his
view of things, by telling us that the very existence of separate spirits is
only "inevitably conceived," but not a real thing. Does he mean to tell us that
God "formed" the "common spirit" he speaks of into the "inevitable conception
"of a distinct thing?
This constant use of language which is merely
fictitious marks his argument throughout. What is it but the deception of one
by whom he is himself, alas, duped, and in whose hands he is the unhappy
instrument in deceiving others?
Moreover the possession of a spirit by the
beast is not asserted in Scripture, except in one passage by the writer of
Ecclesiastes (ch. iii. 19-21): "For that which befalleth the sons of men
befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them; as the one dieth so dieth the
other; yea, they have all one breath (ruach); so that a man hath no
pre-eminence over a beast, for all is vanity. All go unto one place: all are of
the dust, and all turn to dust again. Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth
upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?"
This passage has been seized upon by materialists of course, and is
constantly put forth as the stronghold of their doctrine. They quote verse 19
triumphantly. "Words cannot be stronger than this," says Mr. Constable. "The
preacher tells us not only that man and beast both have spirit, but that the
spirit of both is one and the same. He is here evidently comparing them, in
what they had of the highest kind, and nothing could be higher than the
possession of that spirit which the Psalms and other Scriptures tell us was
indeed nothing less than the Spirit of God Himself. Yet in this he tells us
that ‘man hath no pre-eminence above a beast.’ "*
*Hades, p.
19.
This is bold enough indeed: Mr. Constable has the merit of
speaking out his thoughts. In his very highest attribute, it seems then, man
has no pre-eminence above a beast. Mind, conscience, responsibility, moral
qualities, either he has not, or the beast has, or else these are, after all,
inferior things, "not of the highest kind." "Man being in honour and
understanding not, is like the beasts that perish," says the Psalmist Mr.
Constable adds that he has no pre-eminence over them anyhow, and as for "beasts
that perish," why, one and all perish alike: when the breath leaves them they
but lie down in the dust, being alike but dust.
The argument proves too
much, and so proves nothing. If Mr. Constable had but weighed the verse before,
which he omits, he might have found reason to question his conclusion. The
whole passage is what, Solomon tells us, he "said in his heart" at a certain
time (ver. 18). It is not divine revelation, but human doubt: the questioning
of man’s mind when speculating upon the mystery of existence: "who knoweth
the spirit of man"? etc. It is the language of a man who had "given his heart
to search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven;" who
had "said in his heart" (ch. ii. 1), "Go to now, I will prove thee with,
mirth," and who had "sought in his heart to give himself to wine," and "to lay
hold on folly, that he might see what was that. good for the sons of men, which
they should do under heaven all the days of their life" (ver. 8). This is no
Spirit taught man. In no such path does the Spirit of God lead; and the result
is that, searching out by human wisdom, the grave into which all go is an
impenetrable mystery: men die as the beast dies, they have one breath, one
ruach, they go to the dust alike; as to what is beyond, no mere human knowledge
can penetrate it: who knoweth the ruach of man that goeth upward, or the ruach
of the beast that goeth downward to the earth? That word, ruach, with its
various meaning of breath or spirit, suits well the doubtful questioning of the
passage. But this is the uncertainty of mere human knowledge.. The Spirit of
God could not. doubt or question. It is by the Spirit, surely, that we are
given this history of human searching after wisdom and after good; but the
lesson is, that by human searching he could attain neither the one nor the
other. Listen to Solomon’s own exposition of this as he comes out into the
light: "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" (ch. xi. 5). But he has something to say now about his
former thoughts: for he says finally and conclusively, that the spirit of man
does not "go downward to the earth": "Then shalt the dust return to the earth
as it was, but the spirit shall return to God who gave it."
The
objection is raised as to this by Mr. Roberts, that it ignores the fact of
Solomon’s God-given wisdom. But it is just the point of Ecclesiastes to
show how the wisdom of the wisest failed here, as in the book of Job the
perfection of human goodness. The perfect man has to own his vileness before
God, and the wisest men the incompetence of mere human wisdom.
For
Solomon’s wisdom was self-evidently of that kind which fitted him for the
kingly office which he filled, and for which he sought it (2 Chron. i. 9, 10).
It is compared with that of other kings, and with the wisdom of the East, and
of Egypt, though it surpassed all these. He was the naturalist of his day; his
proverbs a storehouse of practical wisdom for the path on earth. But he is not
the sweet psalmist of Israel, and his numerous songs are mostly forgotten. The
Song of Songs is an allegory, and he was evidently in it the unconscious singer
of spiritual things of which he knew but little. Who could compare him with
David for spiritual insight? And who but must lament his manifest departure
from the path in which his father walked? that departure which, if it be
admitted (as it must be) spite of Solomon’s wisdom, so simply accounts for
the book of Ecclesiastes being not the record of a path in which the Spirit of
God LED, however much He might make the one who walked there the preacher of
the vanity of a world which he had ransacked in vain for satisfaction.
Now, beside this manifestly exceptional passage in Ecclesiastes, there are none
that assert or imply the beast’s possession of a spirit. The passages
quoted from elsewhere by Mr. Constable are plainly inadequate. The "breath of
life" in Gen. vi. 17 is not the spirit, as a comparison with vii. 22 may show.
Nor is it in Psa. civ. 29. He contends, indeed, that if ruach in verse 29 is
translated "breath" it must be equally so in verse 30: "Thou sendest forth Thy
breath (ruach) they are created." But here the "sending forth" necessitates the
other rendering. Were it breath, however, in both places, how would it. prove
Mr. Constables point? God forms the spirit in man: He does not form the breath
of life in him.*
*Gen vii. 22 (marg.), quoted by Annihilationists as
proving "spirit" to belong to beasts, is a mere mistake. The same phrase is
found in 2 Sam. xxii. 16, and is there translated "The blast of the breath,"
where again it is referred to the nostrils: "the blast of the breath of his
nostrils. It is the action of the breath upon the nostrils, so strongly marked
in states of excitement and fear, which is strikingly referred to in the
passage in Genesis: " All in whose nostrils was the breathing of the breath of
life . . . died."
As for Numb. xvi. 22, it refers, from the
context, to man simply as e. g. Matt. xxiv. 22, "Except those days should be
shortened no flesh should be saved"; (Gen. vi. 12), "All flesh had corrupted
his way upon the earth"; (Psa. lxv. 2), " Thou that hearest prayer, to Thee
shall all flesh come," etc.
I return, then, with confidence to my former
position that, so far from the spirit of man being a principle of life held in
common with the beast, the Spirit of God NEVER asserts the beast’s
possession of it. There is complete and absolute silence as to such a thing.
And the silence of Scripture is authoritative against the materialistic
assumption. For their whole theory as to this they are indebted to the
endeavour to "search out by wisdom" (apart from the Spirit, which they deny)
the works of God.
And I need hardly say, that before these few
Scripture facts, Mr. Morris’ theory of the spirit in man, that it is the
new nature in the believer, or the "motions and emotions of the soul" in men at
large - equally breaks down. Zech. xii. 1 will not bend to either supposition.
It speaks definitely of the spirit of man, not of the believer, and says God
formed it, not surely the motions or emotions of the soul! Beside which, to
this "spirit of man, which is in him," the apostle (in 1 Cor. ii. ii) refers
all human knowledge: "What man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of
man, which is in him.?" Could we say, the "motions" or "emotions" of the soul
know?
According to Mr. Constable the beast must "know the things of a
man" (and he wiser than man, who does not know the things of a beast); for he
has the same spirit, and NO pre-eminence over a beast as to that!
My
object, so far, has been but to establish the doctrine of the distinct
existence of the spirit as a separate entity in man. The various uses of the
word, and the relationship of the spirit to the soul, will come up more
naturally after we have examined in a similar manner the Scripture doctrine of
the soul itself.
NOTE - A claim is sometimes set up for
n’shamah as being the representative of the spirit of man proper
rather than ruach. It is the word used in Gen. ii. 7 for "breath of
life," also in Gen. vii. 22 and 2 Sam. xxii. 16, referred to in the last note.
it is really, as there implied, the ruach in action, and may be in that way
referred to ruach in either sense of "breath" or "spirit." It is never the
strict equivalent of ruach; certainly never of a higher character. The Spirit
of God is never n’shamah. It is rather the "breathing," "inspiration,"
"blast," as in Gen. ii. 7; 2 Sam. xxii. 16; Job iv. 9; xxxii. 8; xxxiii. 4;
xxxvii. 10; Psa. xviii. 15; Isa. xxx. 33. As to man, it is expressive of his
being a breathing creature, as in Deut. xx. 16; Josh. x. 40; xi. 11, 14; 1
Kings xv. 29; Psa. cl. 6; and should be translated similarly, and not, by
souls" in a passage referred to by Mr. Constable, Isa. lvii. 16. It should be
"breathing" or "breath ‘ in Gen,. vii. 22; 1 Kings xvii. 17; Job xxvi. 4;
xxvii. 3; xxxiv. 14; Isa. ii. 22; xlii. 5; Dan. v.23; x. 17. There is but one
passage beside these in Scripture, and this seems the only undoubted reference
to the action of the higher ruach, or real spirit of man: here our version
translates it "spirit," yet that it is expressive of the action, rather than
the being of the spirit, we may see in the passage itself, Prov. xx. 27.
Go To Chapter Five
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