Again:—
"Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life."[54]
"I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:
"And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die."[55]
Other passages might be quoted to the same effect, but these must suffice.
The question now is, Did Jesus mean just what he said; or were these idle words, having no significance taken in their literal sense? Jesus was not in the habit of uttering idle words, or of making statements that did not contain the elements of eternal truth. If these are exceptions, they are the only ones recorded in his history. I hold that they are not exceptions, but that they are authoritative statements of a literal scientific truth.
I have already shown that in formulating the doctrine of faith as the essential condition prerequisite to successful healing, he gave utterance to a scientific principle which it has taken nineteen hundred years for the world to understand and appreciate. It is equally true that, in formulating the proposition that belief is the essential prerequisite to the attainment of immortality, he gave words to a scientific principle of far greater importance than the other.
I am aware that one portion of the Christian Church believes that by the words "eternal life" Jesus meant that reward in heaven which is promised to the just, and that by "eternal death" he simply meant the punishment which the wicked must undergo for their sins. On the other hand, there are those of the Church who hold that the literal death of the soul is the punishment meted out to all who die in their sins, while "eternal life" is the reward promised to all who are good. Neither of these sects has, however, satisfactorily explained to unbelievers why it is that belief or unbelief enters as a factor in the case, since man is not supposed to be able to command his belief.
It is to the reconciliation of these conflicting theories that I shall now address myself.
The first proposition of my theory is that the death, or practical extinction, of the soul as a conscious entity is the necessary result of unbelief in immortality.
The second proposition is that the soul, having attained immortality through belief, is then subject to the law of rewards and punishments "according to the deeds done in the body."
The same propositions are more sententiously expressed in Romans ii. 12: "For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law: and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law."