Is There Salvation After Death? : a Treatise on the Gospel in The

IS THERE SALVATION AFTER DEATH? A TKEATISE ON THE GOSPEL IN THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. BY E. D. MORRIS, D. D., LL.D., Lane Tlieoloyical Seminary. SECOND EDITION. A. C. ARMSTRONG & SON, 714 BKOADWAY, NEW YOIJK. COPYRIGHT 1887, BY EDWARD D. MORRIS. CONTENTS CHAPTER I. PAGES. INTRODUCTORY: THE QUESTION STATED, 1-42 CHAPTER II. TESTIMONY OF PARTICULAR SCRIPTURES, 43-81 CHAPTER III. GENERAL TESTIMONY OF SCRIPTURE, . 82-116 CHAPTER IV. THE WITNESS OF CHRISTIAN SYMBOLISM, 117-154 CHAPTER V. THE WITNESS OF CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY, 155-200 CHAPTER VI. THE WITNESS OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE, 201-248 INDEX OF TOPICS AND REFERENCES, . 249-252 IS THERE SALVATION AFTER DEATH? CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY: THE QUESTION STATED. THE aim of this treatise is to discuss, mainly in its more obvious and vital aspects, the important ques tion here propounded, and to supply such answers as the testimonies of Scripture, the witness of Christian symbolism, the evidences drawn from Christian theol ogy, and the tests of religious experience may combine to furnish. In other words, what is here proposed is a solution, practical rather than speculative, of the se rious problem now presented for consideration in vari ous quarters, whether what we term the Gospel has any place or mission in the Intermediate State. Such a discussion as is contemplated seems to require brief introductory reference to certain related truths, and also some preliminary allusion to _ I. Preliminary certain other theories of change in inquiry as to tiio character and condition after death. immortality of Man. Of these related truths the first in order is the underlying fact of Immortality. The conviction that there is a life beyond the grave, and that this future life is unending in duration, has \ined a firm place in the faith of thoughtful minds in all ages, even aside from the teachings of the Chris tian Revelation. This conviction has rested in part on (i) 2 INTRODUCTORY: THE QUESTION STATED. the immateriality of the soul itself, as a simple or un- compounded essence, pervaded by a living principle which seems independent of all physical processes of change or decay. It has rested partly on the con scious possession of endowments and capacities, which appear in their own nature to be indestructible, on the witness of the reason, the esthetic feelings, and the conscience to their inherent supremacy over the acci dents and mutations of time. Further evidence has been found in that primal law of continuity mani fest in our mental and moral experience, by which the full identity of the personality, with all its peculiar ca pabilities, is maintained throughout the vicissitudes of this earthly life. Again, the obvious survival of these spiritual capacities in undiminished vigor even while the physical man is perishing, and the instinctive yearn ings of the soul, its conscious and unconquerable desire to live after death, contribute still further to this well- nigh universal conviction. And finally, the solemn sense of responsibility to some higher power, the deep monitions of conscience, and even the irrepressible an ticipations of a retribution to come, testify yet more con clusively to the fundamental truth that man as man is immortal. What is thus certified to the soul from within, is also suggested to it by certain interesting analogies in physical nature, by what we see of life in other forms preserving itself throughout multiplied changes, as if in defiance of environing death. Illustrations drawn from this field have often been spontaneously seized upon by the mind, in support of its innate aspiration, its inextinguishable desire. Yet, on the other hand, we must confess that nature casts her deep shadows at many points upon the hope which the soul intuitively IMMORTALITY OF MAN. 3 cherishes, and which such intimations at times strongly encourage. We still ask with trembling whether that death which is so often triumphant over life in the broad territory of nature, may not overcome the soul also, and sweep it at last despite hopes and aspirations into an irretrievable destruction. To such an inquiry, anxiously urged, there can be no really conclusive an swer apart from Revelation. It is to the Word of God, to the comforting hints and assurances of the older Scriptures, to the clearer intimations and promises of the New Testament, and most of all to the witness of Him who came to bring life and immortality to light, that we turn for the supreme and the infallible testi mony. No particular array of these biblical evidences is needful here : we study the divine Word, and there in its description of man as he was originally made in the image of God, in its assurances that even his death in trespasses and sins does not imply his annihilation, in its warnings to sinners and its promises to believers, both drawn from an eternity on which saint and sinner are said alike to enter, we read the unquestionable cer tification of God himself to our individual immortality. Nor is this a conditional or contingent immortality, depending for its realization on the conscious and sav ing experience of grace. It is true, H . Immortality as our Lord has taught, (John 17:3) not conditional; .n r i. .1 ,1 , T -|~, , Aimihilatioiiism. that Life Eternal immortality in the supreme and perfect sense can be enjoyed only by those who spiritually know God and the Redeemer whom He has sent. Other passages are found in the New Testament (Rom. 2:7. John 10:27-8) convey ing in part at least the same conception of a holy im mortality, which as a gift of grace is to be enjoyed by 4 INTROD UCTOR Y: THE Q UESTION S TA TED. saints only. Yet unending existence is in multiplied 10:28. Eccl. as passages (Rom. 2:8-9. Matt. 12:7) serted of the sinner as truly as of those who are saved eternally through faith. The sinner like the saint lives on beyond the hour of his earthly decease, having in himself by divine bestowment an immortal subsistence, and therefore maintaining a continuous being in distinct consciousness, age on age, eternally. No theory of hu man nature as dichotomic in the case -of sinners and tripartite in the case of believers, can be sustained, 3 either from the Scriptures or from consciousness. The same body and soul, or body and soul and spirit, which belong to the saint belong in measure as full and com plete to the unbeliever also. The story of the creation of man as man in the divine image, the narrative of his complete fall from that high condition, the faithful record of his career as a sinner, all alike imply that in a state of sin as in a state of grace, he is endowed with enduring life. Moreover, the change which regenera/- tion induces, is not the introduction of another consum mating element into our human nature, but rather the restoration of that nature as it is, with all its native parts and powers, into holy harmony and into blessed fellowship with God in Christ, through the Holy Ghost. But the term, Annihilationism, in the stricter sense, implies not a bare form of existence for the wicked in contrast with a special and gracious mode of being for the godly, but rather an actual extinction of all life for- 1 HEARD, Tripartite Nature of Man: Ch. xm. While the tricho- tomic theory cannot, in view of Heb. 4 : 12. 1 Thess. 5 : 23. 1 Cor. 15 : 44, and some other passages, be pronounced anti-scriptural (as in HODGE, Theol. n : 47), the use of the distinction between soul and spirit in the way here indicated is wholly without biblical warrant, The spiritual mind is not a superadded faculty, but a native endowment graciously spiritualized. IMMORTALITY NOT CONDITIONAL. 5 ever in the case of those who have sinned against God and his grace. Such an extinction may occur, it is sug death or after terminable gested,, either at some period of retributive suffering, or at the day of final judgment. It is asserted that the strong language of the Bible re specting the perishing,, the destruction, the blotting out its can of the ungodly (o.-o/j.-jju and derivatives) mean nothing less than absolute cessation, not of consciousness merely, but of being itself. It is held that the corre sponding term, eternity, ((j.uov, and its derivatives) should be taken as applied to the wicked, in the limited sense of a fixed period a period which, however -prolonged, will finally end somewhere. It is also argued spceu- latively that sin, being a mere disorder and having no permanent ground of existence, may be terminated for it the soul that ever, carrying away with indulges it, that the goodness of God toward the universe may lead him to withdraw7 his sustaining hand, and suffer the incorrigibly wicked to drop altogether out of exist ence, that the welfare and final triumph of divine gov ernment would be best secured by such retributive de struction of every rebel against God. And it is further argued that such a result, if it should occur, would re lieve us forever from the dreadful alternative of ever lasting sin and everlasting condemnation, and would at the same time present immortality and fullness of life to our minds as the legitimate and proper and also the oglorious reward of all the righteouso for evermore. The biblical answer to these reasonings is conclu sive. The strong expressions such as perishing, destruc tion, blottingO out,* found in both the Old Testament and the New, can not always be interpreted as implying absolute extinction.

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