(Chairman, PETER ROBERTSON, D. D., Mohawk Presbyterian Church, Cincinnati)
The Scriptures clearly teach that the dead are unconscious between death and the resurrection'at the second coming of Christ.
The question of this evening is the most fundamental of the series. Upon the false assumption that the dead are not dead rests all the error of heathendom and Christendom. Strange it seems, indeed, that my opponent would appear before an audience of intelligent people to prove that the dead are not only not dead, but that they are far more alive than when they were alive.
What a strange perversity of logic and of language is thus championed! It is bad enough and sad enough that, taught such a fallacy from our infancy, we accepted it unreasoningly, idiotically; but it is astounding to think that any man of my opponent's caliber should, after deliberation, engage to defend such nonsense refuted by our five senses.
But we are told that the belief that the dead are not dead, but more alive than ever, though contradicted by every fact and circumstance and test known to man, must be believed because the Bible says so.
Very well, then, let the issue be squarely drawn, and let my opponent remember his profession and mine. Where the Bible speaks, we speak, and where the Bible is silent, we are silent. Following this rule, my opponent should have nothing to say, for the Bible everywhere teaches that the dead are dead and that their only hope of living again is by and through a resurrection.
And, by the way, how nonsenical would be the Bible promises of resurrection of the dead if nobody is dead'if the dead are more alive then ever. Get the force of the Bible's teachings from the following Scriptures: St. Paul says, "And have hope toward God, which they themselves also allow, that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust."
St. Paul also says, "But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen; and if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain" (1 Cor. 15:13-14).
"For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised; and if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished" (1 Cor. 15:16-18).
The apostle here rests the entire weight of our gospel hope of a future life on the resurrection. But will my opponent tell us how this could be true if the dead are alive now in either bliss or torment? Wherein could a resurrection apply to them or benefit them? If there be no resurrection of the dead, your faith is vain, and they that are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. Let the inspired Word settle the matter for all of us, and for all time. The question is, "Believest thou the scriptures?"
St. Paul again says: "For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive, but every man in his own order; Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that that are Christ's at his coming."
The death of Jesus, the just for the unjust, the resurrection of Jesus as Lord both of the dead and living, the gathering of the elect, the bride of Christ, the resurrection of the faithful bride class in the first resurrection, and the subsequent resurrection of the world to be blessed by the kingdom of Christ, is the theme of all the Pauline Epistles. No wonder he exclaimed before his opponent, as I to-night may do: "For the hope of the resurrection of the dead I am called in question."
No wonder that we read that the early church, persecuted, "went everywhere preaching Jesus and the resurrection ;" Jesus as the one who redeemed our race and made resurrection possible, and the resurrection as the grand process by which the blessing of his redemption will profit mankind; the church of the elect in the first resurrection, the world of mankind in the subsequent resurrection.
Hearken to Jesus: "I am come that they might have life" (John 10:10). His name (Savior) means, literally, life-giver.
Again (John 5:28) He says: "Marvel not: the hour is coming in which all that are in their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of man, and shall come forth;" the [HG192] approved church came forth instantly to perfecting of life; the remainder (unapproved, but redeemed) by rising up by judgments during the millennial age (John 5:28-29); while those who refuse God's grace and sin willfully shall be "utterly destroyed" in the second death, from which there will be no resurrection and no redemption and no recovery. As we read (Acts 3:23): "And it shall come to pass, that every soul, which will not hear that Prophet, shall he destroyed from among the people."
Our affirmation is, that "the wages of sin is death" and not "eternal torment," and that the gift of God is "eternal life," through Jesus Christ our Lord, only obtainable through him. (Rom. 6:23.) Life is the antithesis of death. There is no sentient being, no thought, no reason, no feeling, without life. Hence there can be no thought, feeling or reasoning in death, which signifies the absence of life.
We concede to our opponent just one Scripture, viz.: "Ye shall not surely die" (Gen. 3:4); that is to say, ye shall continue to live, though you appear to die. But who is the author of these words? I answer, those were Satan's words contradicting the divine decree, "Ye shall surely die." Whom, my dear hearers, shall we believe'God or Satan? By that lie Satan deceived Mother Eve, and, through the resulting disobedience, he killed, he murdered, our race. So said our Lord: "He was a murderer from the beginning" (John 8:44).
All the heathen have been deceived by Satan into believing his lie. They all hold that their dead are not dead, but alive in torture somewhere. But they are not stupid enough to invent a doctrine of resurrection to contradict and confuse themselves; nor have Christians any use for a "resurrection doctrine." It is in the way of their pet theory'it is in the way of their pet theory that the dead are not dead. Their difficulty is that they are endeavoring to do' the impossible thing of harmonizing Satan's lies with God's truth. Satan says, "Ye shall not surely die ;" God says, "Ye shall surely die," and your only hope of future life is in Jesus'in his words as Redeemer and Restorer, Life-giver.
Hell and purgatory, deceptions, are built on Satan's lie. No wonder the apostle designated these "doctrines of demons" (1 Tim. 4:1). So thoroughly has he deluded Christians on this subject, that the principal creeds of Christendom tell us that the sentence of original sin is eternal torture'all the creeds; that God became so angry with his children Adam and Eve, that he declared that because they ate the forbidden fruit they must be tormented; and not only so, but that every child born to the entire race is born damned to eternal torment, except as Christ shall save the few who have "ears to hear" now. That is the teaching. Bosh!
Such God-dishonoring, reason-debauching, heart-defiling nonsense! Nonsense! It is turning the best heads to infidelity. We are told that God's justice so demanded and that God's love for the human family assented. But that is blasphemy against the holy Name. I am ashamed to acknowledge that I, too, once so believed, and so preached slanderously of the God of the Bible. I trust that I am graciously forgiven, and I am striving now to tell the truth and to shame the devil, and to help others "out of darkness into the marvelous light of his divine word."
Because the Bible says so, is the answer we get from many when asked why they stick to such absurdities. But the Bible says no such thing, but to the contrary. Let us have more Scriptural testimony. Hearken to St. Paul's explanation of "original sin" and its penalty: "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men," because all have sinned (Rom. 5:12).
One would suppose that a wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err in the reading of so plain a statement; but grey-haired doctors of divinity and professors of theology tell us that they believe that the death here declared means life'eternal life'life with devils, life in torment, and so forth. Surely the god of this world (Satan) hath blinded their minds and darkened their understanding. We are striving and praying for the opening of their eyes to the truth, and this provokes their enmity; but, like the Pharisees of old, they are especially grieved because we teach the people'the common people who heard Jesus gladly and appreciated his "glad tidings of great joy which shall be unto all people" (Luke 2:10). But the common people still pay too much heed to their doctors of law and not enough heed to the word of God; hence their confusion continues.
Come with me to the record of original sin in Genesis. If God put Adam on trial for heaven or hell eternal, that is the place we should find it recorded, and in no uncertain or figurative language. Can we find the record there that God said to Adam, "If thou eatest of the forbidden fruit, I will turn thee and all thy children over into the hands of fireproof demons, who shall torment you to all eternity?" If it is so written, I wish my opponent would give us chapter and verse, that we may ponder well the statement. If it is not so written, we wish he would give us his authority for wresting the Scriptures and attempting to have people think the opposite of what they say.
The Genesis record is very simple, very easily understood by the truth-hungry. It reads: "God said, In the day ye eat thereof ye shall surely die"'marginal reading, "dying, thou shalt die;" and again after their disobedience, after they were driven from Eden, God said: "Thorns and thistles shall the earth bring forth [HG193] unto thee; and in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, until thou return unto the ground; for out of it thou wast taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return" (Gen. 2:17; 3:17-19).
Is it my opponent's claim that God deceived his human son, and said that his penalty for sin would be death, but really meant life in torment; that he said, "Dust thou are, and unto dust shalt thou return," when he really purposed "to devils shalt thou go, and be eternally tormented"? Who but the great adversary authorized my opponent to make of God a liar and a deceiver, the very devil of all devils, foreknowing, plotting and deceiving his first human son so as to have a pretext of justice in damning and torturing him and all his race? The adversary alone authorized the words, "Ye shall not surely [really] die." Satan, the prince of demons, and the fallen angels under him, have for centuries perpetuated the lie that the dead are not dead. They have forced false doctrines upon the heathen and upon Christians, supporting them by dreams and visions and spirit mediums, personating and speaking for the dead, to deceive; and this must continue until the second coming of our Lord, when Satan shall be bound for a thousand years, that he shall deceive the nations no more until the thousand years are finished. (Rev. 20:3.) God's word to the Jews first instructed them that they must have nothing to do with spirit mediums, then called witches and necromancers, who then were misleading the heathen to believe that the dead were alive and could communicate. Illustrations of human beings possessed by demons are given in the Bible. They were by the heathen reputed to have the "spirit of divination," but by the apostle declared to be possessed and controlled by demons who personated the dead.
With a show of great wisdom, some attempt to tell us that God, in breathing into Adam the breath of life, communicated a spark of divinity; therefore, they say, man must live on and on forever, somewhere.
But where do they get this wisdom? It is of their own lame philosophy foisted by Satan during ages past'science, falsely so-called. The Bible tells us a contrary story. In this very passage the expression "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life" in the Hebrew original reads, "breath of lives"'plural. It is an assurance that the breath or spirit of life given to man was of like kind to that given to all breathing animals. The very same expression is used in reference to the lower animals, and all in whose nostrils was the breath of lives perished in the flood, except those in the ark.
A great deal of nonsense is palmed off on the common people about body, soul and spirit. Here we can only briefly define the term "living soul" as meaning sentient being. We have a pamphlet on this subject which we shall be pleased to send free on application; but notice, that it was the whole man that sinned, and the entire man that was condemned to death. Adam, as the image of God, was, of course, far superior to the brutes under him, and God's provision for him was "everlasting life," but not so for them. It was not, however, that he was given an undying nature; for, if so, God would not have said, "Dying, thou shalt die." God provided for him trees of life, by partaking of whose fruits his system would have continually been refreshed and vivified; and when he sinned he was cut off from those trees so that he might die. Such is the record.
The death sentence included our mental, physical and moral decline and extinction; hence we see that whereas Adam resisted death 930 years, the average of life today is thirty-five years. Adam's children were stronger mentally, and could intermarry brothers with sisters; a matter not permitted now, because the children would be insane or idiotic. Indeed, you will find that now one in every 150 adults in New York State is in an insane asylum, and doubtless the averages of other States would be as high. And we who are safe and sane often wish that we had better judgments. Look at the world morally, and you must admit that the Bible is correct in its statement, "There is none righteous, no, not one" (Rom. 3:10; Psa. 14:1). All have shares in Adam's sin and its death sentence; all come short of the glory of God as represented in the first perfect man. Alas "We were born in sin.
In a word, we are a death-sentenced race. God permits unfavorable climatic conditions and thorns and thistles to co-operate in inflicting the pen – and shapen in iniquity; in sin did my mother conceive me" (Psa. 51:5). alty, "Dying, thou shalt die" (Gen. 2:17). There was no hope that God would repeal the sentence. There was hope, however, that his great mercy might find a way to satisfy his justice, and thus secure release from the death sentence. God promised this to Abraham, but did not accomplish it until He sent his Son – not to go to eternal torment for us, but to die for us – that "as by a man. came death, by man also should come the resurrection of the dead; for as all in Adam die, even so all in Christ shall be made alive" (1 Cor. 15:21-22).
Those who had ears to hear, and to whom the Lord made known his purposes of resurrection, thereafter referred to death, not as extinction, but by faith they called it a "sleep," and hoped for an awakening in the millennial morning of Messiah's reign. Note this in the following Scriptures: The queen said to King David: "It shall come to pass, when my lord the king shall sleep with his [HG194] fathers, that I and my son Solomon shall be accounted offenders" (1 Kings 1:21).
We read similarly of Abijah and Asa, Baasha and Omri and Ahab, and a host of others.
Jesus revived the usage of the early church. The Psalmist we find praying along similar lines. He says: "Consider and hear me, O Lord, lest I sleep the sleep of death." Notice how the good and the bad all are declared to have fallen asleep in death: "David slept with his fathers" (1 Kings 2:10).
"Solomon slept with his fathers" (1 Kings 11:43).
"Rehoboam slept with his fathers" (1 Kings 14:31).
Jesus revived the usage in the early church. He said on one occasion: "Our friend Lazarus sleepeth. I go that I may awaken him out of his sleep" (John 11:11).
When the disciples failed to grasp the thought, Jesus said to them, "Lazarus is dead." And when he arrived at Bethany, he did not pray, "Lazarus, come down from heaven, take off your crown, lay down your harp." Nor did he pray, "Lazarus, come back from purgatory? 'What did he do? He requested to be led to the tomb, though the sisters said, "Lord, by this time he stinketh!" At the tomb, Jesus, addressing it, said, "Lazarus, come forth!" What happened? We read, "He that was dead came forth." Not he that was more alive than ever in heaven or elsewhere, but he that was dead. (John 11:11-44.)
Thus did Jesus give an illustration of his glorious work in the millennium, when all that are in their graves shall hear his voice'the voice of the Son of man'and come forth. (John 5:28.) Remember, too, the first Christian martyr, when stoned to death, praying for his blinded enemies. We do not read that Stephen died and was at once more alive than when he was alive; but we read, "He fell asleep" (Acts 7:60).
We noted, awhile ago, that King David fell asleep in death and was gathered to his fathers. He was still asleep centuries later when the apostle Peter spoke of him as still asleep. He says, "David is not ascended into the heavens" (Acts 2:34). St. Paul corroborates this, declaring that David saw corruption "when he fell on sleep" (Acts 13:36). But if any are astonished that St. Peter said that David is not ascended into the heavens, let him remember our Lord's words, "No man hath ascended up to heaven." Jesus says all are "in their graves" (John 5:28). St. Paul says that "Christians should not sorrow for their dead, as do others who have no such hope." He says, "I would not have you be ignorant, brethren, concerning they who are asleep"'asleep! "that ye sorrow not as others which have no hope; for if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so they also that sleep in Jesus will God bring with him from the dead"'through him.
"For this we say unto you, by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent [hinder] them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air."
Again, referring to the faithful alive at Jesus' second coming, St. Paul says, "Behold, I show you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump." And again he says, "But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that slept." And again, referring to the ancients, he says, "Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, and that they might obtain a better resurrection."
Let us have a few texts of Scripture that define what death is, dear friends; let us see. We read in the Psalmist'I understand that our dear brother prefers Psalms to all other kinds of music, because they are inspired. In the Psalm David says, "For in death there is no remembrance of thee: in the grave who shall give thee thanks?" (Psa. 6:5). "The dead praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence" (Psa. 115:17).
Again, "His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish" (Psa. 146:4).
Again we read (Ecc. 9:5), "For the living know that they shall die, but the dead know not anything."
Again (Ecc. 9:10), "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave whither thou goest."
And again we read along the same line, "And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt" (Dan. 12:2).
Let us have a word from Job on this subject of man's condition and death as sleep.
Job says, "So man lieth down, and riseth not; till the heavens be no more they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep." Till the heavens be no more, till the new dispensation has been ushered in, they will not work or be raised out of their sleep. Then again he proceeds to say, "Oh that thou wouldst hide me in the grave"'in Sheol'" that thou wouldst keep me secret until thy wrath is passed"'till the reign of sin and death is over'" that thou wouldst appoint me a set time, and remember me? 'The resurrection time'the morning that God has promised when all that are in their graves shall hear his voice and come forth.
Then he asks the question, "If a man die, shall he live again?" And he answers, "All the days of my appointed time will I wait [HG195] till my change come. Thou shalt call, and I will answer thee; thou wilt have a desire to the work of thine hands."
But now our dear brother, no doubt, will endeavor to have us view the matter of death in some different way. We have set before you, dear friends, a portion of what the Scriptures say about death. That is the tone and the import of all the Scriptural statement, that death is death, and the great gift of God is life; that our race forfeited life because of sin, because of Adam's disobedience that his life was forfeited; but that God has provided a plan through Christ'that Jesus tasted death for every man, and that, therefore, our penalty of death being paid, it is possible for God to be just and yet to be the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus.
And not only so, not only we who now believe because we have the ears to hear, but in due time it shall be testified to all men, as the apostle tells us that all might have in due time the opportunity to hear, the opportunity to believe, and the opportunity to have blessing through Him who redeemed the whole world, and not merely the church'redeemed us from death. "Thou hast redeemed my soul from destruction." It would have been destruction to us, dear friends; our death would have made us as much dead as the brute beast is dead; and the only hope of our having a resurrection life at all is in the fact that Christ paid our penalty. And thus God can be just and grant us a return of opportunity of life everlasting through a resurrection from the dead.
But our dear brother may have his mind more or less beclouded, and endeavor to becloud our minds on the subject of death, by suggesting some Scriptures which are to be taken in a figurative sense, as, for instance, when our Master said, "Let the dead , bury their dead; go thou and preach the gospel." What did Jesus mean?
He simply meant that the whole world was under condemnation of death, and that those that believed in him were the only ones who could be said to have a right to life. Therefore, those who have come to a knowledge of Christ and been united to him by faith, were the only ones who might be said, figuratively, to have life, and the others are all dead.
The whole world is under sentence of death, and are so treated by the Lord as though they were dead. And it is only those who come into relationship with Christ, the Life-giver, that are spoken of or considered as though they had life.
"He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son hath not life," is the record.
But notice, in this text that we have before us, Jesus said (Matt. 8:22), "Let the dead bury their dead; go thou and preach the gospel." He was referring to the mass of mankind, all dead under condemnation, and the one who believed in him was the only one that was even reckonably alive.
So, in another Scripture, all these believers are spoken of as being risen from the dead; being made alive from the dead in the figurative sense that we already begin a new life. The beginning of the new life starts from the time we have accepted Christ and have come into union with the Life-giver. We are already figuratively said. to have come into the relationship of living; we have a right under our heavenly Father's promise that we may have eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord, and so we speak of ourselves as being no longer dead in trespasses and sins of the world, no longer dead in the sense of being under the divine sentence of death, but we have passed from death unto life.
While this is called resurrection, dear friends, in no sense does it take the place of the real resurrection which is to occur at the second coming of our dear Lord and Master. This is merely the figurative sense in which we are no longer a part of the world, but passed from the world-state and condition to be united with our Lord, and to have the new life again, which is to be completed when we shall be gloriously changed into his likeness in the first resurrection.
Our dear brother may also take up the text which says, "Ye were dead in trespasses and sins." You see it is the same thought. We were dead in trespasses and sins. This condemnation of death passed upon all men because all men are sinners; as the apostle says (Rom. 5:12), this condemnation is general. Everybody is under it. But we who believe in Christ are reckoned, or accounted, as though we have escaped; so the apostle says, "We have escaped the condemnation that is in the world." And again he says, "That the whole world is under the wrath of God."
He says, "That we were children of wrath, even as others." But we are no longer children of wrath, dear friends, because we came into harmony with God through faith in Jesus' blood, and through the acceptance of the terms of salvation which he has provided.
But it is only a few that have done this. The great mass of mankind are still, as the Scriptures say, blinded by the adversary, and the whole world lieth in wickedness, as you remember the Scriptures say.
Now, dear friends, the Lord set before us something very different from what theology and theologians from the dark ages down have been setting before us.
Theologians have been telling us that the penalty back in Eden was eternal damnation, because Father Adam ate the forbidden fruit and was disobedient; but the Bible tells us that it was a reasonable and just penalty. What justice would there be on God's part, dear friends, in condemning Father Adam to an eternity of [HG196] torture because he was disobedient, because he ate of the forbidden fruit? I read in a paper not a great while ago of a farmer who fired his gun with some bird-shot at a boy who was stealing some apples in his orchard, and the man came pretty near being lynched for it; but that would not be one-thousandth part as bad as if he had tried to torture the boy through all eternity for stealing an apple.
Now, I am not wishing to make light of the matter, dear friends, but I tell you that the very thought that has been crammed down our throat, that God, on account of the original sin of Father Adam in eating the forbidden fruit, in justice was obliged to condemn him to all eternity and turn him over to devils with pitchforks and fires for thousands of millions of years'that is all nonsense, and I do not know where our brains were when we believed such stuff, and how we ever managed to take any of it in.
But, dear friends, when we take what the Scriptures do say, how reasonable and just the penalty! God had a right to demand of his creatures who were perfect, and not as we are, born in sin and shapen in iniquity, but of Adam, who was in the image and likeness of God, he had a right to demand of him perfect obedience. He did demand it of him, and it was on this condition that he was to have eternal life; if he would be obedient to God, he might live forever. And the fruits of the garden were provided for his use, that he might live forever if he would be obedient; but if he would be disobedient, God told him he would take away his life, if he would not use it in harmony with him. And so God says to us all, "I have set before you blessings and cursings, life and death; choose life that ye may live." But, ! dear friends, so-called orthodoxy tells us there is no choice about it. You have got to live somewhere. God has made a job that he can not undo. He has made man, they tell us, so that he has got to live somewhere; that almighty God created a being that he could not undo; but the Scriptures tell us to the contrary, that God is able to destroy both soul and body. There is no trouble about God being able to do that, but the whole question is, dear friends, would God, with the ability to destroy soul and body, keep them consciously in any existence, or do you think it would be what he says he will do, "All the wicked will he destroy?" What shall we say? I say, dear friends, let God be true, though it makes every creed a liar. We have had enough of these lies; we want some of the truth; we want to have our hearts braced up with something sensible out of God's word. That is what has driven people away from the Bible. We have been taught that the Bible contained this nonsensical and absurd proposition, and it has driven people into infidelity; and you will find, as a rule, nearly all of the intelligent people of the city o! Cincinnati will say, " Well, I do not believe in eternal torment." That man who says, "I do not believe in eternal torment," nevertheless believes that the Bible teaches it. So when he throws away his eternal torment, he throws away his Bible, too; but we do not want that, dear friends.
We want to hold to the word of God, and we find that the word of God has the grandest proposition imaginable. That God proposes to give eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord; that that is the gift he is to give us. And nobody has eternal life, none of the wicked shall ever have eternal life. They can not get it, because God is not going to give this gift to any except those who will come into harmony with him. At the present time he is giving it, you will see, to the church, the little flock. He tells us that Jesus came and brought life and immortality to life through the gospel. He brought redemption through his blood to the whole world, and immortality is brought to life. Does not that mean that man had immortality? Not at all. How could Jesus bring immortality to life if man already had immortality?
But it says that he came to bring life'immortality to life'for the world during the millennial age. All who will come into harmony with the Lord will have eternal life by coming into harmony with his arrangements, and those who will not come into harmony with him shall be utterly destroyed in the second death.
And now he has brought immortality to life through the gospel in the church. The church is invited to be sharers with him, partakers of the divine nature. The apostle says, "To us are given great and precious promises, that by these we may become partakers of the divine nature." It is that divine nature that has the glory, the honor, the immortality, the joint-heir-ship with Christ, attached to it.
That is why you and I want to gain this great prize of our high calling. And, in due time, we are glad to see that God has eternal life for whomsoever will accept it on his terms of obedience to the Prince of righteousness. Let us have, then, dear friends, before our minds life and death, not heaven and eternal torment. Now, the adversary has been interested in getting that up. I am not blaming my opponent; I am not blaming the other people of this time nor of past times, even when they used to burn each other at the stake because they thought they were copying the character and method of God. They said, "God is going to throw them to the devil and torment them, therefore we will do a little bit of it now." So they put them on racks, burned them at stakes, and they said, " We will give them a taste of it now, because we are copying our God." They did that because they had a false conception of God, dear friends.
I am glad for the people of our day, and glad for [HG197] the amount of intelligence that has come to us, dear friends, that we are able to see something better than this, that we are able to see something more reasonable, that you neither want to burn me at the stake, nor I want to burn you. We want to do each other all the good we can, and we want to get in line with our Father's word and let God speak. When the Bible speaks, we are to speak, and when the Bible is silent, we are to be silent. We want to hear what God our Lord has said, and he has said that he has redeemed us from destruction, not redeemed us from torment; "redeemed thy soul from destruction." He has said that the wages of sin is death.
He has said that the soul that sinneth, it shall die. Will somebody tell us that the soul can not die? We merely say, "Where is your Scripture?" We have the Scripture to show that "the soul that sinneth shall die." God is able, says Jesus, to destroy both soul and body; able to do it, and he will do it. All the wicked will he destroy not merely, dear friends, all the ignorant. No, thank God, the poor, ignorant and blinded ones, it shall be testified to them in due time, for as the angels sang, you remember, when they introduced our dear Redeemer at his birth, "Behold, we bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be unto all people."
Now, I would like to know what kind of great joy, what kind of good tidings, it would be that would reach the heathen. There are twelve hundred million of heathen today that know not our Lord at all, know nothing about the good tidings, know nothing about the joy. I am sorry to say to you, dear friends, that there are a great many here today right in Cincinnati, in Pennsylvania and in Ohio, that have not ears to hear either. They have not yet heard the good tidings of great joy which shall be unto all people.
Now, my dear friends, it is good tidings of great joy to my heart already, to know that I have got a good God, to know that I have a God that is bigger than myself. I used to wonder as a child, often, when I tried to think of my heavenly Father'as I used to go along the streets of my city here and there placarding some word that I hoped might keep somebody from slipping down into eternal torment'I wondered why does not the almighty, loving God shine forth some banner upon the heavens that will tell the people that they are going to eternal torment; that he loves them, but he can not help them; that he is a powerless God? What is the matter with our God? Why did he not make men of such kind that he could destroy them if they were bad men? Did not he know the end from the beginning?
Why did he ever make people fireproof and pain-enduring, and have no better end for them than that? My dear friends, the trouble was in our heads, the trouble was in the dark ages, and those doctrines all came down to us. They have done an incalculable amount of harm, they have turned our hearts away from the Lord our God, and they have made us think of ourselves as really better than he. But no, no! When we come to see the real God and learn to know his real character, we have a God that is infinite in wisdom, in justice, in love, in power; that will cause the knowledge of his Son, and the knowledge of his character, and the knowledge of the gracious opportunity of life eternal, to come to every member of the human race. He is keeping them down in the prison-house of the tomb, he is keeping them till the morning. Still, night, darkness, covers the earth; gross darkness is over the people; but the Sun of righteousness is about to arise, the glorious millennium morning is about to shine forth, and then the whole earth shall be flooded with the knowledge of God, and then there shall be no longer need to teach every man his neighbor, saying, "Know thou the Lord," because all shall know him, from the least of them unto the greatest, saith the Lord. Is not that grand?
That is under the kingdom; that is when his kingdom has come; that is when the glorious Master will be reigning in power; that is when he will have taken hold of the affairs of the world. He shall rule them with a rod of iron, we are told. We are glad of that. The nations need ruling with a rod of iron; they need it and they will get it. And the settlement will come to them. They will wake up to find they can do right, and that many of the bugaboos that were before their minds that have kept them away from the Lord are nonsensical. They will wake up and say, " This is our God; we have waited for him." They will wake up to the time that the Lord speaks of when he says, "I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh."
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen:
In the Cincinnati Enquirer today there appeared what purports to be a verbatim report of the speeches made in this debate last night, but it is not such a report as regards my speeches, and it is due to me and my brethren that the public should know the facts. Exactly one column is given to my first speech, while two full columns are given to Elder Russell's reply. In that speech I read thirty-seven passages of Scriptures, containing eighty-three verses. Only four of these passages, containing five verses, appear in the report. Thirty-three passages, containing seventy-eight verses of Scripture, are suppressed and not allowed to appear in the report of the speech, while in Elder Russell's speech, which was given twice as much space as mine, [HG198] all the Scriptures he quoted are reported correctly. But in justice to the Cincinnati Enquirer I will say that this was not done by the reporter for that paper, but by some of Elder Russell's men. I desire to state that this does not excite within me any unkind feelings toward Brother Russell, but I will add that if I had brought a reporter with me who had thus cut down Brother Russell's speeches and accorded mine a larger space, I would not feel I had treated him just right.
I am indeed glad to have the opportunity of denying the speech to which you have just so patiently listened. Last night I introduced eighteen arguments in support of the proposition I was affirming; and read thirty-seven passages of Scripture, containing eighty-three verses, to prove them, and not one of those arguments did he even attempt to reply to. None of these Scriptures he tried to show taught differently from what I said, but simply tried to build up an argument on the other side and show that perhaps something else was true.
We are going to have some debating here this evening, for I am going to take up his speech and follow him in the order in which he delivered it. And if you see me going from place to place in this you will know it is only because I am following him. It could have been truly said of him and of his speech, as it was once said by a carpenter who was running a turning-lathe. He put an advertisement over the door of his shop which said, "All kinds of turning and twisting done here."
He said, "The most fundamental of all the series was the proposition that we are discussing at this particular time," and said that it was strange to him that his opponent should defend such nonsense. I am glad to inform the gentleman that I am not defending nonsense. I am only meeting nonsense. He says that his opponent should have nothing to say. Well, I guess he would be very glad if I would not have anything to say. I am sure that there is nothing that would please him any better than for me to have nothing to say, but I will have a little something to say, under the blessings of the Lord. Acts 24:15, a Scripture that he read, I will notice for just a moment. "And have hope toward God, which they themselves also allow, that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and the unjust," which I most heartily indorse.
And in 1 Cor. 15:18-20, where the apostle shows conclusively that Jesus Christ did rise from the dead, and that after while all the human family will be raised from the dead, this I indorse most heartily. But did you know that the resurrection is not the question under discussion at this time? The question that we are considering, the point at issue, is, Will the dead be conscious between death and the resurrection? That is the point at issue, and not the resurrection. Then he says for the resurrection of the dead he was called in question. Certainly not, because that is not the question at issue, but it is a question of consciousness. Well, if he be correct, we go down into the dark, narrow, gloomy grave; nothing about us in any way that will ever be conscious. I wonder if my distinguished opponent can not distinguish between the death of the body and the life of the spirit? I wonder if he has never learned from the word of God that God teaches that even though the body may be dead, that the spirit will be alive at the same time?
He said that he conceded that I would have just one Scripture, "Thou shalt not die," and said that Satan was the author of that Scripture. Yes, Satan was the author of that Scripture that says, "Thou shalt not die," for God said, "Thou shalt die." But death is not the point at issue here. We are both agreed that all people must die, both the good and the bad; but the question at issue is, Will the dead be conscious after they are dead, or will we, after the death of our body, have an immortal principle that never dies? But he had much to say about hell and purgatory as coming from Satan. It seems that these questions of hell and purgatory are bothering him very much. If he wants to discuss purgatory, let him tackle a Catholic priest. And, so far as the torment question is concerned, he will have more of that tomorrow night than he will be able to stand; but the trouble with him is he is being tormented before the time. And did you notice in his speech, that he merely assumes that death means extinction?
In the fifteenth chapter of Luke we have an account of the prodigal son, beginning with the eleventh verse and reading unto the thirty-second inclusive. When that boy had wandered away from his father's house and gone into a distant land, and wasted his substance in riotous living, he was about starved to death, and he said to himself: "There are servants at my father's house who have bread enough and to spare, and here I am perishing with hunger. I am determined what I will do. I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son. Make me as one of thy hired servants." So he went, and his father saw him coming'and I thank God that his father did not have to be begged to take him back.
I thank God that the God that I worship does not have to be begged to save the sinner; that God stands ready and willing and anxious to save the sinner every hour, and the only reason all the sinners in this audience and this city are not saved is because they are not willing to be saved. Jesus Christ said to some wicked people on one occasion, "Ye will not come to me that ye might have life."
He did not say, you can not come, as my honorable opponent teaches, but said, "Ye will not come to [HG199] me that ye might have life." And so the father saw the boy coming, and he ran to him and he fell on his neck and kissed him, put his best robe on him and a ring on his finger and shoes on his feet, and had the fatted calf killed, and there was joy and rejoicing in that home, for he said, "This, my son, was dead, but is alive again." Was he? He was dead and alive at the same time; he was dead to his father, dead out yonder, but alive in wickedness. This intelligent audience can see that, whether my distinguished opponent can or not.
In Matt. 22:23-32, Jesus said that God is not the God of the dead, but of the living, and says that he is the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, all of whom had been dead for more than fifteen hundred years; but yet they were living, their bodies were dead and had gone down into the grave, but these men were living. Jesus said, "God is not the God of the dead, but of the living." In the same breath he says, "He is the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob." But he said that God did not put Adam on trial for heaven or hell. We are not discussing whether folks are on trial for heaven or hell or not, but we are discussing whether people are conscious between death and the resurrection or not. Rev. 20:3, he quoted, that Satan could not try the people or get the people to sin any more for a thousand years. We are not discussing that millennial question.
We will have that clay after to-morrow night. So I am not going to take the time to discuss that question now when he expressly has a proposition on that thousand-year question. Then he refers to the breath and the spirit of life. Did you know that my distinguished opponent teaches that the spirit is no more than the breath? Am I mistaken about this or am I not? I wonder if any of you people have heard of a book called the "Millennial Dawn"? Do you know who its author is?
Here is Volume V. On pages 187-188 my distinguished opponent says: "The word 'spirit' in the Old Testament is the translation of the Hebrew word ruach; the primary significance or root meaning of which is 'wind. 'The word 'spirit' in the New Testament comes from the Greek word pneuma, whose primary significance or root meaning likewise is 'wind. '"Then, if "spirit" means the wind, you can read the Scriptures that have "spirit" in them and put "wind" for "spirit" and make complete sense. Let us see if that be true. I will take several Scriptures that he quoted here in the same volume. In the fourteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians and twelfth verse (1 Cor. 14:12), Paul says, "Forasmuch as ye are zealous of windy gifts." Paul said in the seventeenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, when standing before those wicked people, when he saw the city wholly given over to idolatry, his "wind was stirred," within him. In the third chapter of John, fifth verse, Jesus says, "Verily I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the wind, he can not enter into the kingdom of God." That is enough at the present time. Eph. 2:1. He knew what was coming, and so he anticipated me on that, but I already had it noted before he suggested it. "And you hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and in sins." The Scriptures sometimes represent people as dead while they are yet alive. Those people were alive physically, but dead in trespasses and in sins.
And then he quoted Psa. 51:5, where David said that in sin his mother had conceived him and brought him forth in iniquity, and it had no reference to this proposition whatever. Let us see. Does that prove that David was a sinner because his mother conceived him in sin? If so, the Bible teaches that Jesus Christ was born in a stable, and on the same principle you could say that Jesus Christ was a horse because he was born in a stable! Behold, John Smith was born in a potato patch, therefore John Smith is a potato l The same kind of logic that he got from this passage of Scripture. But he said Lazarus was dead, the eleventh chapter of John, eleventh verse; that Jesus went to awake him out of sleep'and that gives me a fine opportunity to call your attention to another Lazarus that we read about in the sixteenth chapter of Luke, from the nineteenth unto the thirty-first verses: "There was a certain rich man which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day; anal there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores, and desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table. Moreover, the dogs came and licked his sores. And it came to pass that the beggar died and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom. The rich man also died and was buried; and in Hades he lifted up his eyes being in torments."
Hold on, if Elder Russell had been there he would have said, "Look here, Christ, you must not have that fellow over there in torment; why, that would be cruel to have that fellow over there in torment. There is no torment."
That is the way my distinguished opponent would have talked to Christ, "Jesus, you have it wrong, because there are none conscious after death; that fellow has not been raised from the dead and he is totally unconscious." But Jesus said that "in Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom." Why, yes, there were Abraham and Lazarus; they were alive over yonder, but you have it, Brother Russell, that [HG200] they were dead back here in this world. "And he cried and said"'is it possible that a fellow can be conscious enough after he is dead to cry out? "And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember'" Oh, is it possible that a fellow will have memory in the future life? Certainly. Here is an example of a man that was dead, but who was conscious and had a memory. If I were discussing this from a scientific standpoint, I could prove that the human memory is indestructible; but I am investigating it from a Scriptural standpoint. Here is an example given by the Son of God where there was consciousness between death and the resurrection: "But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime"'remember what?'" that thou in thy lifetime"'he points him back here to this world'" receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted and thou are tormented. And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us that would come from thence." If Brother Russell had been there he would have said: "Look here, Lord, look here, Abraham, you have that thing all wrong. We are going to have a thousand years of trial. I have been teaching people over in Allegheny that we are going to have a thousand years of trial; and now, Abraham, you step down and out; all intelligent people have given up your theory, and you are not in it a little bit; you are a back number; you belong back in the dark ages that sprang from Roman Catholicism and heathenism combined. Abraham, you have this thing wrong." Then he said, "I pray thee, therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father's house." You see he is conscious that he had a father's house back in this world. "Send him to my father's house; for I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment."
Here is your example; here were two men that were dead; they were perfectly conscious after death, and they conversed and talked about the things here in this life. I have read you the example out of the word of God, given by our Lord Jesus Christ, and if Elder Russell will read an example from the word of God where Jesus Christ gives an example and says that people are unconscious between death and the resurrection, I will surrender this debate and get on the first train that will take me back to Dallas, Texas, my home. He can not do it. If his eternal salvation depended upon it, he could not do it. I have given you an example from the word of God. But the example on the other side is not there.
Then he referred us to Acts 7:60, where it tells of Stephen, who had the honor of being the first martyr for the cause of Christ. When they had stoned him to death he kneeled down and cried with a loud voice, "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this he fell asleep." And I wondered why my dear brother did not see the verse just preceding it, which says, "And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." Where was Jesus? Stephen saw him alive at the right hand of God. Where could Jesus receive his spirit? He could receive his spirit only where he was. Where does the spirit go?
Ecc. 12:7, "Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it." That immortal principle of the human family that never dies. So they killed the body of Stephen, but Stephen prayed for the Lord to receive his spirit where he was. But if Elder Russell had been there he would have said, "Look here, Stephen, you have this wrong; your spirit is nothing more than just your breath anyway, and Jesus is not going to receive your breath up there where he is. You have that thing wrong."
But he said that "death is death." Certainly. Death is death. But I wonder if it is possible, or utterly impossible, for him to understand that a person's body can be dead and his spirit be alive at the same time? Jas. 2:26, "For the body without the spirit is dead." I want him to show the statement in the word of God that ever said "the spirit without the body is dead." Does the separation of the spirit from the body effect the spirit as it does the body; at the separation of the spirit from the body, does the spirit take away anything essential to the body? Or does the body retain anything essential to the spirit? If it is either one way or the other, the separation is not complete. When the separation takes place, the body goes to the grave with all its essential elements, and the spirit to God with all of its essential properties. The body goes to the grave and is unconscious, for consciousness is not a property of the body. The spirit goes to God with its consciousness because consciousness is an intellectual quality of the spirit. The body loses nothing in the separation essential to its being the body; the spirit loses nothing in the separation essential to its being the spirit. Did God give man an unconscious spirit? No. 1 Cor. 2:11:" What man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God." John 4:24, "God is a Spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth."
But he said that he would give us some Scriptures in a figurative sense. All right. I will answer him with [HG201] Scripture in a figurative sense. 1 Tim. 5:6, Paul says, "But she that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth." I wonder if he can not understand that a person can be dead and alive at the same time? But he was continually talking about torture'torment and damnation. I wonder why he has such a terrible dread of torment and damnation? I have not any special fear of it, because I am following the word of God and getting ready in this life, and trying to get everybody else ready in this life, but he is teaching the people to risk that dreamy chance after this life. No wonder he dreads torment.
And he says that nearly all the intelligent people of Cincinnati reject the doctrine of eternal torment. I have very serious doubts about the correctness of that statement, but suppose they do. I am in Cincinnati now. Our distinguished chairman, Dr. Robertson, is in Cincinnat1 He is one of the oldest preachers in your great city. I wonder if he and the balance of the intelligent people in Cincinnati have rejected the doctrine of eternal torment? But suppose that all the people here do reject it. What about it? 1 Cor. 1:26, "For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called." I know that I am not a very wise, that I am not a very great man, but I do not reject the doctrine of eternal torment, because God's book does not reject it. I am aware that my distinguished opponent is an exceedingly intelligent man and a great man, and I am willing to concede to him that many of his brethren are great and intelligent people, and they have rejected the doctrine of eternal torment, but I am the weak man in this debate, he is the strong man, and do you know that it is perfectly Scriptural for me to be the weak man in this debate and he the strong man, for in 1 Cor. 1:27, Paul says, "God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty."
And then he tells us that there are many people here in Cincinnati who have not ears to hear. Why is it that they have not ears to hear? Did you know that he is undertaking to teach the principle that they can not hear'that God won't let them hear? In Matt. 13:15, Jesus says, "For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their cars, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them:" The reason that some of them have not ears to hear, and the reason they do not hear, is because the teaching of such people as Elder Russell is putting them to sleep religiously, and they say, "Oh, well, it does not matter much what we do here in this life; we will have a thousand years' chance after this life is over, and we will just go ahead and pay no attention to it here in this life; we will have a better chance hereafter." His doctrine is calculated to cause people to procrastinate, to put things off, and to keep people from hearing.
Now, I have followed him in his speech unto its close, and want, in the remainder of the time allotted to me, to introduce some strong Scriptural and logical counter-arguments on this proposition.
To teach this proposition of unconsciousness between death and the resurrection means to teach that man is wholly mortal, while the Bible teaches that it takes body, soul and spirit to constitute man. 1 Thess. 5:23, "And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly, and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ."
Will Elder Russell answer the following questions: Does the soul die? Does the spirit die or is it , just the body that dies? Does everything that goes to constitute man die? The contention of the gentleman is a very gloomy, depressing and cheerless one. According to the carnal doctrine he advocates, man can not hope for a life of happiness in the world to come. At most he can only hope that at the time called the "resurrection" there will be beings created that will be happy in the future world. Psa. 116:15 "precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints." Elder Russell teaches that the dead are unconscious; they are in a state of non-existence. Then, according to him, it is precious in the sight of God for his saints to go into a state of unconsciousness, into a state of non-existence. But Eze. 33:11 says: "I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked." That being true, God has no pleasure in seeing the wicked go into a state of non-existence, into a state of unconsciousness, but does have a pleasure and rejoices in the righteous going into a state of unconsciousness. Thus God esteems the wicked higher than he does the righteous, if the contention of the gentleman be true.
I want to show you some things that he teaches. Did you know that he denies the resurrection of our bodies? "Millennial Dawn," Volume V., page 365, he makes use of this statement: "Thus the Scriptures assure us that human bodies which return to the dust will not be restored, but that in the resurrection God will give such new bodies as it may please him to give." Instead of the resurrection, there will be a re-creation. "Millennial Dawn," Volume V., page 369, he teaches that these bodies of ours will not be resurrected. Who ever read anything in the Bible about our bodies being recreated at the second coming of Christ, or the dead in Christ re-created first? [HG202] John 5:28-29, Jesus says, "Marvel not at this, for the hour is coming in which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth.; they that have done good unto the resurrection of life; and, they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation." On that occasion Jesus says they shall .come forth from their graves, and in Rev. 20:13, "And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades delivered up the dead in them, and they were judged every man according to their works." But Elder Russell teaches in his "Dawn" series that the bodies do not come back from the grave. So he is denying the resurrection of these bodies of ours. He teaches that man physically is no better than the brutes, only he has a better body. "Millennial Dawn," Volume V., pages 362 and 363, we find this statement: "So then it is in that the Creator has endowed man with a higher and finer organism, that he has made him to differ from the brute. They have similar flesh and bones, breathe the same air, drink the same water and eat similar food, and all are souls or creatures possessing intelligence; but man, in his better body, possessing capacity for higher intelligence, is treated by the Creator as on an entirely different plane."
If this be true, which is doubted, then man is about on an equality with a dog. The dog eats and drinks, he breathes air and sleeps. So does man. The dog dies; so does man. At death the dog becomes unconscious; so does man. At death the dog goes into a state of non-existence. Elder Russell says that at death man goes into a state of non-existence. He also teaches that at death man becomes "exactly what he was before he was created;" that is, nothing at all.
"Millennial Dawn," Volume V., page 340, "into a period of non-existence."
"Millennial Dawn," Volume 1, page 154, he actually states there that we come into a state of non-existence, and he says in " Millennial Dawn," Volume V., pages 352 and 353, that death is a period of absolute non-existence. Now, he tells us so much about the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Cor. 15:16-17:" For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised. And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins." Oh, yes, there is so much depending upon it, because we are all lost if it be true that Christ has not been raised from the dead.
1 Cor. 15:20, "But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept." But did you know that Elder Russell positively denies the resurrection of the body of Jesus Christ from the grave? "Millennial Dawn," Volume 2, pages 129 and 130, he says: "Our Lord's human body was, however, supernaturally removed from the tomb, because if it had remained there it would have been an insurmountable obstacle to the faith of the disciples, who were not yet instructed in spiritual things, because the Spirit was not yet given. We know nothing about what became of it, except that it did not decay or corrupt."
Listen to this: "Whether it (that is, the body of Christ) was dissolved into gases or whether it is still preserved somewhere as a grand memorial of God's love, of Christ's obedience, and of our redemption, no one knows, nor is such knowledge necessary."
Oh, shame, where is thy blush? To say that the body of Jesus Christ was not resurrected from the dead is striking at the very bed-rock principle of the Christian religion, teaching this modern and dangerous doctrine of infidelity, denying the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, like those that the apostle Peter talks about, when he said that they had denied the Lord Jesus Christ that bought them. He is denying the resurrection of the body of our Lord Jesus Christ.
A little further along he says: "Hence it will not surprise us if in the kingdom God shall show to the world the body of flesh crucified for all in giving himself a ransom in their behalf, not permitted to corrupt, but to preserve, as an everlasting testimony of infinite love and obedience."
I must confess that I am heartily ashamed of a theory that will lead any man who claims to be a called and sent minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ to deny the resurrection of the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the first man that I have ever met in public discussion in my life who denied the resurrection of the body of Jesus Christ. And I pray God earnestly that no man and no woman in this audience will ever be led off by this dangerous doctrine to deny the resurrection of the body of our Lord Jesus Christ.
But did you know that he also says that in the resurrection of Christ that Christ was a spirit, a spirit being, and that he was no longer a human being in any sense?
"Millennial Dawn," Volume 1, page 231, he positively declares that Jesus Christ was a spirit after he came back from the grave.
Luke 24:36-43 will answer that false doctrine. "And as they thus spake, Jesus himself"'this was just after he arose from the dead'" stood in the midst of them and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. But they were terrified and aftrighted, and supposed they had seen a spirit." Elder Russell says he was a spirit.
"And Jesus said unto them, Why are ye troubled, and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; handle me and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have." That was after he arose from the dead. He had that same body he had before he was crucified, and said that a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me [HG203] have. I follow the record further.
"And when he had thus spoken, he showed them his hands and his feet. And while they yet believed not for joy, and wondered, he said unto them, Have ye here any meat? and they gave him a piece of broiled fish and of an honeycomb. And he took it, and did eat before them."
Will Elder Russell answer the following questions?
Can a spirit have flesh and bones?
Can an immaterial spirit eat material food, as Christ did on that occasion? I will follow this argument still further. I want to give you two examples. One is where the soul of a living person departed from that person, for she was dead, and another example where the soul returned into a dead person, and he then became alive. Gen. 35:18-19, "And it came to pass, as her"'that is, Rachel's'" soul was in departing (for she died)"'Elder Russell would have said, "Look here, Moses, in recording that, you have it wrong; we do not have souls, we are just souls ourselves, and her soul did not depart." But Moses, in recording it, says, "as her soul was in departing (for she died), that she called his name Benoni; but his father called him Benjamin. And Rachel died and was buried in the way to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem." When her soul departed she died. 1 Kings 17:21-22:" And he"'the prophet Elijah'" stretched himself upon the child three times." That was a dead child now, and Elder Russell says when a fellow is dead, he is just dead, there is nothing about him alive. And Elijah "stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried unto the Lord, and said, O Lord my God, I pray thee, let this child's soul come into him again. And the Lord heard the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived."
That is, he became alive again. Something departed from Rachel and she died.
What was it? Something returned into that dead boy and he lived. That living something that was in Rachel, her soul, her spirit, departed from her, and then her body was dead. That spirit, that soul, that living something in that boy whose body was dead, returned into him and he was then alive. Did you know that the doctrine of my distinguished opponent is the old doctrine of the Sadducees, only in a modified form? He is entirely contrary to the apostle Paul (Acts 23:6-8): "But when Paul perceived that the one part were Sadducees and the other Pharisees, he cried out in the council, Men and brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee.
Of the hope and resurrection of the dead, I am called in question. And when he had so said there arose a dissension between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the multitude was divided, for the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel nor spirit; but the Pharisees confess both." Paul, then, was a Pharisee and indorsed the doctrine of the Pharisees, which said there Were both angels and spirits.
Then we come to the transfiguration (Luke 9:28-32): "And it came to pass about an eight days after these sayings, he took Peter and John and James, and went up into a mountain to pray. And as he prayed, the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his raiment was white and glistering. And behold, there talked with him two men, which were Moses and Elias." If Elder Russell had been there he would have said, "Look here, that is not so; Moses and Elias are dead, and dead men can not talk." But they were there talking just the same. "Who appeared in glory, and spake of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem. But Peter and they their were with him were heavy with sleep, and when they were awake they saw his glory and the two men that stood with him." Verse 35, "And there came a voice out of the clouds, saying, This is my beloved Son, hear ye him." Moses had died'had been dead about fifteen hundred' years'and had not been resurrected; but he appeared on the Mount of Transfiguration, retaining his identity and 'individuality, and talked with Jesus, and the three apostles mentioned saw him.
Brother Russell, will you answer these questions: Was Moses actually on that mount? Did the apostles see him? Did Moses talk with Jesus?
Did God really say to Jesus: "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him?"
Let the gentleman answer these questions.
I want to say to you that it was no fable, either. 2 Pet. 1:16-18. reads: "For we have not followed cunningly devised fables when we made known unto you the power and the coming of our Lord"'Jesus Christ'" but were eye-witnesses of his majesty. For he received from God the Father honor and glory when there came such a voice from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount." So it was not a fable, but a real, actual occurrence. 2 Cor. 12:1-4, Paul said: "It is not expedient for me doubtless to glory. I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord. I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago (whether in the body I can not tell, or whether out of the body I can not tell; God knoweth). Such an one caught up to the third heaven. And I knew such a man (whether in the body or out of the body I cannot tell; God knoweth). How that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words which it is not lawful for a man to utter." [HG204] Paul evidently had this experience in paradise. or in heaven itself at the time that he was thought to have been stoned to death, and Acts 14:19 says that he was dragged out of the city as dead. But he was conscious just the same.
Here is another example. Matt. 10:28, Jesus said, "And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul, but rather fear him which is able to destroy both body and soul in hell." Yes, thank God, though people can kill our bodies, they can not kill our souls. 2 Cor. 4:16-18. (I call your attention now to the outer and inner man), Paul says: "For which cause we faint not, but though our outward man perish, yet the inner man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal." The outward man is the body; it is seen, it is temporal; but it is the inward man, the spirit, which is not seen; it does not die. 2 Cor. 5:1, "For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."
Verse 4, "For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened; not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life."
Verse 6, "Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord."
Verse 8, "We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord."
Could anything be plainer? Paul teaches that when we are at home in the body, alive, we are absent from the Lord, but when we are absent from the body, dead, we are present with the Lord. I ask the gentleman to tell us what it is that is absent from the body? When the spirit leaves the body, the body is dead and the spirit goes to God who gave it. The body is the house in which the spirit dwells till separated from it. Will he answer the following questions?
What is the difference between angel and spirit as spoken of in Acts 23:8?
Does it take body, soul and spirit to constitute the man? Was the spirit created out of the dust? Is the spirit any part of man? If so, what part?
If not, what use have we for the spirit?
Since the spirit of man knows (1 Cor. 2:11) and is thus conscious in this world, does it lose consciousness when it returns to God? If so, why?
Dear friends, you must not take Elder White too seriously. He is trying to make an argument, you know. He is not always as fair as we think he should be when making quotations from "Millennial Dawn." This would be known to those who have read "Millennial Dawn." Many have not, and so we think the fair thing will be to have you investigate for yourselves. We are very glad to supply copies of this work to any who wish to know more about it. If you are interested, you can have the book for a loan, if you choose. Answering very briefly some of his many points, we would say: He speaks of the resurrection of the body. But the Scriptures do not speak of the resurrection of the body; it is the soul that sinneth that shall die; it is the soul that sinneth that was condemned to death; it was the soul that Christ purchased. As the Scriptures say, "He poured out his soul unto death; he made his soul an offering for sin." "Who redeemeth thy soul from destruction." It was your soul that was doomed to destruction, and not your body; your body changes every seven years, anyway. It was not your body that was condemned to destruction. It was your soul, your being, your right to eternal life, that was gone, and that Christ purchased for us all. So in the resurrection it is not to be a resurrection of the body, but of the soul, and so the Scriptures say respecting our Lord, "Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell"'in the grave ("in hades" in the New Testament, and " sheol" in the Old Testament. You will remember that Peter was quoting from the Old Testament, where David calls the word "sheol," and in quoting it Peter uses the word "hades," in our Greek.) Our Lord's soul was not left in Sheol, was not left in the grave; God raised him up by his own power on the third day, and gave him a body as it pleased him. He did not give him back the body that he died with, and you will never see Jesus in glory as the hymn represents it, "There five bleeding wounds he bears, Received on Calvary."
The apostle Paul says, "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God," and if you get into the spirit realm at all, you will not have flesh and blood, either.
Therefore, the apostle Paul says because flesh and blood can not inherit the kingdom of God, we must all be changed; so he says if we are of those who [HG205] have gone down into the grave into death, we must have received spirit bodies, we must be raised spirit beings; or if we are of those who are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord, we must be changed from earthly to spiritual beings, because flesh and blood can not inherit the kingdom of God.
Our brother refers to the going out of the soul of Rachel. We have it all treated in the volumes of "Millennial Dawn." If Brother White has read it, he knows how we have treated it. It is the life that went out; it is the soul life or being that went out. She was dead, but, in translating it from the Hebrew language, you can not put it into the exact form in the English language. "As her soul was in departing" is a reasonable enough translation, if you give it a reasonable interpretation.
Our brother calls attention to Paul being caught up to the third heaven, seeing unlawful things not proper to be uttered. Paul was caught away in spirit. It was so real to him that he did not know whether he was actually there, or merely there in his mind. He did not know whether he was in the body or out of the body. It was to him as though he was in that place. He was caught up to heaven, but where was he come to? The third heaven. Where is the third heaven? The Scriptures call to our attention but three heavens. One was the heaven of the first dispensation, that perished at the flood. The second is the heaven of this present time, the authority or power of the devil exercised over this present evil world; and the third is the new heaven for the next dispensation, the kingdom of Christ, "the millennial kingdom." He was caught away to the third heaven in his vision, caught up to the third kingdom, the millennial kingdom, and there he saw matters as they will be in the millennial age, just as John in his vision saw various things represented by beasts, women, angels and so forth, in the book of symbols of Revelation. These were all things he saw in his vision, and so Paul was caught away and tells us how it was.
Our brother inquires, "How could Moses be on the Mount of Transfiguration?"
And what is the answer of the Scriptures to that? The Scriptures say that as they came down from the mountain Jesus charged them straitly, saying, "See that thou tell the vision to no man until the Son of man be risen from the dead." I was not there, and my Brother White was not there, but Jesus, who was there'and he knew what he was talking about'said it was a vision. Peter did not know, for Peter, who was in a half-dreamy state, said, "Lord, it is good to be here. Shall we build thee a tabernacle?" and so forth. Not knowing what he said, so it reads, he was confused, but Jesus, who did know all about it, said it was a vision, another vision of the heavenly kingdom, Moses representing one class, Elijah another and Jesus himself representing the other'a picture of the heavenly kingdom. And Peter refers to it in his Epistle: "We have not followed cunningly devised fables when we made known unto you the power and kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ." "And this voice we heard when we were with him in the holy mount." It was a vision in the holy mount of the coming kingdom, Peter says, whatever Brother White says.
He calls our attention to the inner man and the outer man of Paul. Very well, dear friends, so the Scriptures represent: that all those who are of the elect class, begotten of the Spirit, are new creatures, and they have the new nature begun in them; they have the outward nature of the old man, and they have the new man.
But mankind in general does not have the old man and the new man. It is only those that are begotten again that have the old man and the new man. If you are Christians, begotten of the Holy Spirit, you have the old and the new nature, and the apostle says the one is perishing, but is being revived, and you are growing as a new creature in Christ, but you are dying as a natural man. The apostle Paul was in harmony with that. The old Paul was dying; the new creature was growing day by day and the old was dying.
Our brother calls attention to the fact that people can not kill the soul; they may kill our body, but after that we have nothing more that they can do. They can not kill the soul. What soul is this? Who has this soul? The only ones that have this soul, or right to live, are those who have accepted Christ. As for the remainder of mankind, they are not in this standing at all; they have not any right to live. The whole world is already dead, but those that have a! ready accepted Christ are counted as having a right to eternal life. Jesus, addressing this class, said: "If any man take this earthly life, do not bother for that; I have given you eternal life. Fear not them that kill the body, that is all that they can do; they have no right to touch your soul'the right of life that God has given you through your relationship to me, the life-giver."
Our brother called attention to the expression, "This, my son, was dead, but is alive again." This is in a figurative sense. In the parable you remember the son was represented as having died to the privileges of his father's house, just the same as sinners are said to die; just the same as sinners are dead in trespasses and sins. There is no eternal life outside of relationship with God. Therefore, there can never be a place where there will be people eternally in torture, because none but those in accord with God can have eternal life. So in this case the son that was away off was recognized as having been dead in this sense'that he was dead to [HG206] father, to home and every interest'a figurative situation in the Word.
Our brother makes light of the statement that the words reuch in the Hebrew and pneuma in the Greek signified spirit, and that the word "spirit" is the same word as the word "breath" and the word "wind." Wherever you read the word "wind" in the Old Testament, it is the same original word in Hebrew that is used for spirit; and wherever you read the word "wind" in the New Testament, you are reading the original Greek word also translated spirit'pneuma. But it is a very unfair statement to make. In "Millennial Dawn" we show how these words are applied. I can not go into that matter now. There is a whole chapter in the "Millennial 'Dawn," with all the various explanations of Scripture. I have no time to discuss it in two minutes'it would require a miracle.
Our brother calls attention to the rich man and Lazarus. We will have that up later, and we will have a good opportunity for discussing it when we discuss the subject of eternal torment. We have the rich man and Lazarus all right when you come to understand it. You will be better satisfied then than you have ever been before. You have never really understood it before. I have never been satisfied about the rich man and Lazarus. No theologians have been. You will be satisfied when you see the truth on the subject.
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen:
The honorable Chairman has just told you that when Elder Russell is speaking it has a very soothing effect and almost puts you to sleep. Not only do his speeches almost put you to sleep physically, but his doctrine will eventually put you to sleep spiritually if you follow it. But the chairman says that when I am speaking you all seem to rouse up and get wide awake. Much obliged. And he says that if it continues, that he thinks that they all can not tell where they are. If you will come with me on the word of God, you will all know where you are.
Brother Russell said that I am not fair in quoting from "Millennial Dawn." If it is not fair for me to quote from it, it is not fair for him to write it, for I quoted it in the identical language of the author; and he can not get out of it in any such way as that. In fact, the burden of his last speech was simply an advertisement to try to sell his books.
I challenge him to name any place in "Millennial Dawn" where I have misquoted him in anything he said. The trouble is that what I quoted from his books hurts, and he does not like it. But he said the Scriptures do not speak of the resurrection of the body. Do they? Shall I take his ipsc dixit for that? He is a wonderful man, but Paul, another wonderful man, says differently. 1 Cor. 15:42-44:" So also is the resurrection of the dead. It [the body] is sown in corruption. It [what is he talking about'the body?] is raised in incorruption. It [what is he talking about'the body?] is sown in dishonor. It [what, the body?] is raised in glory. It [what, the body?] is sown in weakness. It [what, the body?] is raised in power."
Now, there are some folks in the audience laughing at me because I call this the body. But when I read the next verse, the laughing will go the other way. "It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body." [Applause.] He also tells us that Christ was not given his body back. Well, after Jesus Christ came back from the grave he said, "See me, handle me, look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself, for a spirit has not flesh and bones as ye see me have."
And then he ate, he drank with them, he communed with them.
Let us see about this matter: That flesh and blood can not inherit the kingdom of God. 1 Cor. 15:50, Paul says: "Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Neither doth corruption inherit incorruption."
If he undertook to teach you anything, it was to teach you that flesh and blood can not enter the kingdom of God. It says "inherit." I wonder if he can not see the difference between "enter" and "inherit." What is the lesson? Gal. 5:19-20, "Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these, Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God." As long as we are led by the impulses of the flesh, we will never inherit the kingdom of God, but we must be led by the teaching of God's eternal Spirit, and then we will inherit the kingdom of God.
In Rom. 8:11 Paul used this strong statement, "But if the spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you." Why am I reading this passage? Simply because my distinguished opponent says that nowhere in the Bible does it say one word about raising our bodies, but that all the time it is raising our souls; never anything about raising our bodies. "But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you." Now you have it, Elder Russell to the [HG207] contrary notwithstanding. But he said that Paul did not see into heaven. I understand that he did. Paradise at that time had been removed into heaven itself, where will be the final dwelling-place of God's saints. But he said that the third heaven referred to the millennial age, and Paul did not know whether he was in the body or out. I will grant his statement for just a moment, for argument's sake, that what Paul saw in the third heaven was the millennial age. 2 Cor. 12:4, "How that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for man to utter." The things that Paul saw there were not lawful for a man to utter. Elder Russell says it was the millennium. Then, sir, your millennium is an unlawful institution.
Then the transfiguration. He said that was a vision. For you know that in addition to that that the record says, that the three apostles saw Moses and Elias, and if he would have examined Thayer's Greek Lexicon, in which the scholarship of the world is concentrated, he would have learned from Dr. Thayer that a vision is something that is seen. Many thanks to you. I saw Cincinnati for the first time two days before this discussion began. I never had a vision of Cincinnati till after I saw it. Since seeing Cincinnati I have had a vision of your great and wonderful city. And so Peter, James and John saw Moses and Elias, and then they had a vision, a perfect recollection of how they looked. And I showed you in my former speech that it was not a fable, but a reality. Then he said that the soul was the new life. Granting that to be true for a moment, Matt. 10:28 says, "Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." Was the new life that which was cast into hell? If the contention of my distinguished opponent be true'which it certainly is not'then it is true that the new life was that which was cast into hell.
John 2:18-21:" Then answered the Jews and said unto him, What sign showest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things? Jesus answered, and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in braiding, and wilt thou rear it up in three days? But he spake of the temple of his body." Christ could not voluntarily lay clown his life without being conscious, neither could he take his life without being conscious; but if Christ was dead, body, soul and spirit, how could he exercise any power? In death the body has no power of any action whatever. If the spirit is thus dead, how can there be an exercise of power to become alive again?
If Christ was wholly unconscious while in the grave, as Elder Russell teaches, how did Christ know when the three days had passed that he was to be in the grave? 1 Cor. 15:22, "For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." Death came by Adam. Of his own will he disobeyed God in eating the forbidden fruit, which he could have refrained from doing. Then, if Christ in death was unconscious, he was perfectly passive, without volition; existed only in the material out of which his body was created. As my honorable opponent teaches, I shall insist that Christ was without power to take life again, and that the resurrection did not come by him. But this is not true. Rom. 14:9, "For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living."
After announcement by the Chairman of the subject for the following evening, Pastor Russell arose, and said: "I would like to say, dear friends, my friend, Mr.White, criticized the subject of the reporting. I would say, so far as my knowledge is concerned'" Elder White. Mr. Chairman: "I made that as a part of my speech. He has had two speeches to answer it. It must be answered in his speech, and go in as a part of the record of this debate."
The Chairman decided against Mr. Russell.
COURAGE
Courage when the way seems long, Courage when your plans go wrong.
Courage when your heart would break, Courage, God your hand doth take.
Courage when misunderstood, Courage – this can work for good.
Courage beats the devil down, Courage chases every frown.
Courage, yes, 'tis sent of God.
Courage found within his Word.
Courage? Pray, and it will come And see you to your Kingdom-home.