Facts and
Theories as to a Future State
CHAPTER IX
MANS RELATIONSHIP TO GOD
ONE last consideration before we close this section. It is
very plain that, as distinguished from the beasts, man is in Scripture
recognized as in a place of relationship with God; and this by creation, not
redemption merely. Adam, as the work of Gods hands, is in some sort, as
the genealogy in Luke bears witness, the son of God.* The apostle
confirms it by quoting from the heathen poet, "we are also His offspring
" (Acts xvii. 28). Now, although sin has so far destroyed the meaning of
this as to make it an unavailing plea in the lips of carnal and ungodly men,
yet the basis of relationship exists in spite of the fall, as these and other
words assure us. And this is a relationship which plainly no beast could have.
Its very nature denies it; and this is a distinction of the very greatest
importance evidently.
*Luke iii. 38: where it is futile to object, as
some do, that " the son" is not in the original. That it must be understood is
plain from its being equally left out all through after the first time, and
evidently merely to avoid repetition. Its occurrence in the first instance
(ver. 23) is a perfect guide to the ellipse afterwards, and people might as
well question " Seth" being the "(the son) of Adam," as "Adam" being here" (the
son) of God."
Which Mr. Morris would translate "His product," a
sense the word never bears.
Man is fitted for acquaintance and
intercourse with God, and in this shows himself; and in this I may say alone, a
moral and accountable being. He may "not understand," and so he may become like
the beasts that perish, but he is not one. In his manifest degradation even he
is a witness of his nobler origin, for a beast cannot degrade itself And with
all this perilous capacity for evil, nay, with all the actuality of evil
itself; he has the witness in himself of relationship to the Infinite and
Eternal, which, in spite of himself, warns him of his responsibility, and links
him by his hopes or by his fears, or both, with that life beyond death, in
which, notwithstanding the seeming protest of all his senses, he almost
universally believes.
In thus asserting with the inspired historian,
and with the apostle, mans distinct place in nature as a "son of God," I
do not at all forget the Lords words to those who made this very thing
their plea. When they had put forth their claim, "We be not born of
fornication: we have one Father, even God," I perfectly remember that His
answer is, "If God were your Father, ye would love me, . . . ye are of your
father the devil" (John viii. 42, 44). But this language is in no wise
contradictory of the other, as of course it could not be. For the Lord says the
same as to their being Abrahams children, and that certainly they were by
natural generation however little morally such. It is of their moral condition
then He is speaking. The devil was not their father physically of course. The
Lords words then do not touch the question of their being physically
Gods offspring, as the apostle asserts.
But we are not only said
to be the offspring of God, it is precisely pointed out that. He is the Father
(in contrast with the flesh) of our spirits. "Furthermore we have had fathers
of our flesh, who corrected us, and we gave them reverence; shall we not much
rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits, and live ?" (Heb. xii. 9.)
Who can deny with any appearance of success.: that we have here the
development, by an inspired writer, of what the creation of man, as given in
Gen. ii., implies? We have seen the bodily frame formed of the dust of the
ground, and though God wrought in a special way to fashion it, as He did not
with the beast, yet He does not claim to be the Father of our flesh. But we
have seen also that man became a "living soul," not in that way, nor as brought
forth of the earth at all, but by the inbreathing of God into him. This is not
said of the beast; and, phenomenal as the language is, it is only therefore the
more, instead of the less, significant. If God did not want to convey to us an
idea of what would be literally expressed by it, He must have intended to
convey the thought of some corresponding spiritual reality.
And what
can this be, but that the spiritual part which animates and controls the bodily
organism is something from Himself and akin to Himself in a way that the body
is not?
Here then the apostle develops this thought. He is not the Father,
though the Creator, of our flesh. It is not the bare fact of our creaturehood
that constitutes us His children. The beasts are His creatures also, but are
not this. He is the Father of our spirits, not our flesh; nay, not merely of
our spirits, but of spirits, - of all this class of beings. Creatures though
these are, they are yet in a relationship to Him that no lower creatures can
be. Thus we see why the angels are "Sons of God" (Job i. 6; xxxviii. 7). as
"spirits; " and man too, he is a " spirit" and a son."
Note too how
careful the language is. Man has a living soul and is one: and this too by the
inbreathing of God. Yet is God not said to be the Father of his soul but of his
spirit. How this harmonizes with the spirit being the distinct speciality of
man alone in all this lower world! Had it said, "Father of souls," or had the
beast, as men contend, a spirit, God would have been represented as Father of
the beasts of the field. But the language is precise, as all Scripture is, and
in harmony with Scripture and with nature.
But this is not the whole of
what the Word states. As He is the Father, so is He "the God of the spirits of
all flesh" (Numb. xvi. 22, xxvii. 16); "all flesh" being of course here what it
is in many other places "all men," but characterized by what in him is only his
lowest part. So we find (Gen. vi. 12) that before the flood "all flesh had
corrupted his way upon the earth," and in Luke iii. 6, "all flesh shall see the
salvation of God:" of course in either case all mankind, and only these.
In this expression then, "the God of the spirits of all flesh," we see
again God in relationship with the spirit of man. The beast has no God that can
be called his God; and man, forgetting God and living to himself, becomes a
beast. The outward presentation of this you may find in Nebuchadnezzar finding
his portion with the beasts (Dan. iv.); the moral of it is in Psa. xlix., "Man
being in honour and understanding not is like the beasts that perish." Their
perishing is the fruit of there being no proper link with God, such as man has.
Thus then we have in a very striking way, and as confirming all that
has gone before, mans link with God to be his spirit, - relationship,
moral character, responsibility, and even his perpetuity of being, all bound up
with this.
Let us now gather up the Scripture statements upon the
subject we hare been examining: -
1. The body is not the whole man, for he
is often said to be in it or absent from it, clothed with it or unclothed. Thus
for faith the body is the clothing of the man, and his "tabernacle," which
supposes an inhabitant. Paul has a vision of unutterable things, and does not
know whether he was in the body or out of the body at the time he saw them.
2. In the language of sense man is identified with the body; for faith,
with what dwells in it. The Lord lay in Josephs tomb, yet confessedly His
divine nature did not lie there.
3. Man is spirit and soul and body.
4.
Spirit is not an universal principle floating in the atmosphere, but a separate
entity in every individual, "spirit of man," "spirits of men." It was formed
within him by the Lord, and all his knowledge is ascribed to it This spirit the
beast has not.
5. The soul is not the body, but in the body. Beasts have
and are living souls, and man is called a soul to distinguish him from the rest
of intelligent creatures, who are called "spirits." The soul is the link also
between the spirit and the body, the life of the latter while in connection
with it; the seat of affection, nay, of appetite, lusts, etc.
6. It thus
characterizes the man himself, so as to be identified with him, soul and person
being used as the same thing, while in the intermediate disembodied state the
general term for him is that he is a spirit.
7. Again the soul is that
through which man was seduced and fell, and which characterizes the natural man
as led by it. It is thus specially connected in Scripture with will and lust,
with sin and with atonement.
8. By the possession of a spirit
distinguishing him from beast man is in relationship with God, the Father and
God of spirits, and is a moral, responsible being, made for eternity in
contrast with the "beasts that perish."
"To the law and to the testimony;
if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in
them."
Go To Chapter Ten
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