The Destiny of the Soul: A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life

by William Rounseville Alger

10 Laurence, Ascensio Isaia atis, cap. 9, v. 7, 9; cap. 4.

and all is clear. The inferences and exhortations drawn from the mission of Christ are not usually connected in any essential manner with his painful death, but directly with his glorious resurrection out from among the dead unto the heavenly blessedness. "If we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection." Sinking into the water, when "buried by baptism into the death of Christ," was, to those initiated into the Christian religion, a symbol of the descent of Christ among the dead; rising out of the water was a symbol of the ascent of Christ into heaven. "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God." When Paul cries, exultingly, "Thanks be to God, who through Christ giveth us the victory over the sting of death and the strength of sin," Jerome says, "We cannot and dare not interpret this victory otherwise than by the resurrection of the Lord."11 Commenting on the text "To this end Christ both died and lived again, that he might reign both over the dead and the living," Theodoret says that Christ, going through all these events, "promised a resurrection to us all." Paul makes no appeal to us to believe in the death of Christ, to believe in the atoning sacrifice of Christ, but he unequivocally affirms, "If thou shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." Paul conceived that Christ died in order to rise again and convince men that the Father would freely deliver them from the bondage of death in the under world. All this took place on account of sin, was only made requisite by sin, one of whose consequences was the subterranean confinement of the soul, which otherwise, upon deserting its clayey tent, would immediately have been clothed with a spiritual body and have ascended to heaven. That is to say, Christ "was delivered because of our offences and was raised again because of our justification." In Romans viii. 10 the preposition occurs twice in exactly the same construction as in the text just quoted. In the latter case the authors of the common version have rendered it "because of." They should have done so in the other instance, in accordance with the natural force and established usage of the word in this connection. The meaning is, Our offences had been committed, therefore Christ was delivered into Hades; our pardon had been decreed, therefore Christ was raised into heaven. Such as we have now stated is the real material which has been distorted and exaggerated into the prevalent doctrine of the vicarious atonement, with all its dread concomitants.12 The believers of that doctrine suppose themselves obliged to accept it by the language of the epistles. But the view above maintained as that of Paul solves every difficulty and gives an intelligent and consistent meaning to all the phrases usually thought to legitimate the Calvinistic scheme of redemption. While we deny the correctness of the Calvinistic interpretation of those passages in which occur such expressions as "Christ gave himself for us," "died for our sins," we also affirm the inadequacy

11 Comm. in Osee, lib. iii. cap. 13.

12 Die Lehre von Christi Hollenfahrt nach der Heil. Schrift, der altesten Kirche, den Christlichen Symbolen, und nach ihrer unendlichen Wichtigkeit und vielumfassenden Bedeutung dargestellt, von Joh. Ludwig Konig. The author presents in this work an irresistible array of citations and authorities. In an appendix he gives a list of a hundred authors on the theme of Christ's descent into hell.

of the explanations of them proposed by Unitarians, and assert that their genuine force is this. Christ died and rose that we might be freed through faith from the great entailed consequence of sin, the bondage of the under world; beholding, through his ascension, our heavenly destination restored. "God made him, who knew no sin, to be sin on our account, that we might become the righteousness of God in him," might through faith in him be assured of salvation. In other words, Christ, who was not exposed to the evils brought on men by sin, did not think his divine estate a thing eagerly to be retained, but descended to the estate of man, underwent the penalties of sin as if he were himself a sinner, and then rose to the right hand of God, by this token to assure men of God's gracious determination to forgive them and reinstate them in their forfeited primal privileges. "If we be reconciled by his death, much more shall we be saved by his life." That is, if Christ's coming from heaven as an ambassador from God to die convinces us of God's pardoning good will towards us, much more does his rising again into heaven, where he now lives, deliver us from the fear of the under world condemnation and assure us of the heavenly salvation. Except in the light and with the aid of the theory we have been urging, a large number of texts like the foregoing cannot, as we think, be interpreted without constructive violence, and even with that violence cannot convey their full point and power.

Secondly, in Paul's doctrine of the redeeming work of Christ we recognise something distinct from any subjective effect in animating and purifying the hearts and lives of men. "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law." "In Christ we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins." Nothing but the most desperate exegesis can make these and many similar texts signify simply the purging of individual breasts from their offences and guilt. Seeking the genuine meaning of Paul, we are forced to agree with the overwhelming majority of the critics and believers of all Christendom, from the very times of the apostles till now, and declare that these passages refer to an outward deliverance of men by Christ, the removal by him of a common doom resting on the race in consequence of sin. What Paul supposed that doom was, and how he thought it was removed, let us try to see. It is necessary to premise that in Paul's writings the phrase "the righteousness of God" is often used by metonymy to mean God's mode of accounting sinners righteous, and is equivalent to "the Christian method of salvation." "By the deeds of the law no flesh shall be justified; but the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, freely justifying them through the redemption that is in Christ." How evidently in this verse "the righteousness of God" denotes God's method of justifying the guilty by a free pardon proclaimed through Christ! The apostle employs the word "faith" in a kindred technical manner, sometimes meaning by it "promise," sometimes the whole evangelic apparatus used to establish faith or prove the realization of the promise. "What if some did not believe? Shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?" Evidently by "faith" is intended "promise" or "purpose." "Is the law against the promises of God? God forbid! But before faith came we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed." Here "faith" plainly means the object of faith, the manifested fulfilment of the promises: it means the gospel. Again, "Whereof he hath offered faith to all, in that he hath raised him from the dead." "Hath offered faith" here signifies, unquestionably, as the common version well expresses it, "hath given assurance," or hath exemplified the proof. "Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster." In this instance "faith" certainly means Christianity, in contradistinction to Judaism, and "justification by faith" is equivalent to "salvation by the grace of God, shown through the mission of Christ." It is not so much internal and individual in its reference as it is public and general. We believe that no man, sacredly resolved to admit the truth, can study with a purposed reference to this point all the passages in Paul's epistles where the word "faith" occurs, without being convinced that for the most part it is used in an objective sense, in contradistinction to the law, as synonymous with the gospel, the new dispensation of grace. Therefore "justification by faith" does not usually mean salvation through personal belief, either in the merits of the Redeemer or in any thing else, but it means salvation by the plan revealed in the gospel, the free remission of sins by the forbearance of God. In those instances where "faith" is used in a subjective sense for personal belief, it is never described as the effectual cause of salvation, but as the condition of personal assurance of salvation. Grace has outwardly come to all; but only the believers inwardly know it. This Pauline use of terms in technical senses lies broadly on the face of the Epistles to the Romans and the Galatians. New Testament lexicons and commentaries, by the best scholars of every denomination, acknowledge it and illustrate it. Mark now these texts. "And by him all that believe are justified from all things from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses." "To declare his righteousness, that he might be just and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus." "What things were gain to me [under Judaism] I counted loss in comparison with Christ, that I may be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but the righteousness which is of God through faith in Christ." "By the deeds of the law no man can be justified," "but ye are saved through faith." We submit that these passages, and many others in the epistles, find a perfect explanation in the following outline of faith, commenced in the mind of Paul while he was a Pharisee, completed when he was a Christian. The righteousness of the law, the method of salvation by keeping the law, is impossible. The sin of the first man broke that whole plan and doomed all souls helplessly to the under world. If a man now should keep every tittle of the law without reservation, it would not release him from the bondage below and secure for him an ascent to heaven. But what the law could not do is done for us in Christ. Sin having destroyed the righteousness of the law, that is, the fatal penalty of Hades having rendered salvation by the law impossible, the righteousness of God, that is, a new method of salvation, has been brought to light. God has sent his Son to die, descend into the under world, rise again, and return to heaven, to proclaim to men the glorious tidings of justification by faith, that is, a dispensation of grace freely annulling the great consequence of sin and inviting them to heaven in the Redeemer's footsteps. Paul unequivocally declares that Christ broke up the bondage of the under world by his irresistible entrance and exit, in the following text: "When he had descended first into the lower parts of the earth, he ascended up on high, leading a multitude of captives." What can be plainer than that? The same thought is also contained in another passage, a passage which was the source of those tremendous pictures so frequent in the cathedrals of the Middle Age, Christus spoliat Infernum: "God hath forgiven you all trespasses, blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, and took it away, nailing it to Christ's cross; and, having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show of them, openly triumphing over them in Christ." The entire theory which underlies the exposition we have just set forth is stated in so many words in the passage we next cite. For the word "righteousness" in order to make the meaning more perspicuous we simply substitute "method of salvation," which is unquestionably its signification here. "They [the Jews] being ignorant of God's method of salvation, and going about to establish their own method, have not submitted themselves unto God's. For Christ is the end of the law for a way of salvation to every one that believeth. For Moses describeth the method of salvation which is of the law, that the man who doeth these things shall be blessed in them. But the method of salvation which is of faith ["faith" here means the gospel, Christianity] speaketh on this wise: Say not in thy heart, 'Who shall ascend into heaven?' that is, to bring Christ down; or, 'Who shall descend into the under world?' that is, to bring up Christ again from among the dead." This has been done already, once for all. "And if thou shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." The apostle avows that his "heart's desire and his prayer unto God for Israel is, that they may be saved;" and he asserts that they cannot be saved by the law of Moses, but only by the gospel of Christ; that is, "faith;" that is, "the dispensation of grace."

Paul's conception of the foremost feature in Christ's mission is precisely this. He came to deliver men from the stern law of Judaism, which could not wipe away their transgressions nor save them from Hades, and to establish them in the free grace of Christianity, which justifies them from all past sin and seals them for heaven. What could be a more explicit declaration of this than the following? "When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son to redeem them that were under the law." Herein is the explanation of that perilous combat which Paul waged so many years, and in which he proved victorious, the great battle between the Gentile Christians and the Judaizing Christians; a subject of altogether singular importance, without a minute acquaintance with which a large part of the New Testament cannot be understood. "Christ gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God." Now, the Hebrew terms corresponding with the English terms "present world" and "future world" were used by the Jews to denote the Mosaic and the Messianic dispensations. We believe with Schoettgen and other good authorities that such is the sense of the phrase "present world" in the instance before us. Not only is that interpretation sustained by the usus loquendi, it is also the only defensible meaning; for the effect of the establishment of the gospel was not to deliver men from the present world, though it did deliver them from the hopeless bondage of Judaism, wherein salvation was by Christians considered impossible. And that is precisely the argument of the Epistle to the Galatians, in which the text occurs. In a succeeding chapter, while speaking expressly of the external forms of the Jewish law, Paul says, "By the cross of Christ the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world;" and he instantly adds, by way of explanation, "for in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision." Undeniably, "world" here means "Judaism;" as Rosenmuller phrases it, Judaica vanitas. In another epistle, while expostulating with his readers on the folly of subjecting themselves to observances "in meat and drink, and new moons and sabbaths," after "the handwriting of ordinances that was against them had been blotted out, taken away, nailed to the cross," Paul remonstrates with them in these words: "Wherefore, if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances?" We should suppose that no intelligent person could question that this means, "Now that by the gospel of Christ ye are emancipated from the technical requisitions of Judaism, why are ye subject to its ordinances, as if ye were still living under its rule?" as many of the best commentators agree in saying, "tanquam viventes adhuc in Judaismo." From these collective passages, and from others like them, we draw the conclusion, in Paul's own words, that, "When we were children, we were in bondage under the rudiments of the world," "the weak and beggarly elements" of Judaism; but, now that "the fulness of the time has come, and God has sent forth his Son to redeem us," we are called "to receive the adoption of sons" and "become heirs of God," inheritors of a heavenly destiny.

We think that the intelligent and candid reader, who is familiar with Paul's epistles, will recognise the following features in his belief and teaching. First, all mankind alike were under sin and condemnation. "Jews and Gentiles all are under sin." "All the world is subject to the sentence of God." And we maintain that that condemning sentence consisted, partly at least, in the banishment of their disembodied souls to Hades. Secondly, "a promise was given to Abraham," before the introduction of the Mosaic dispensation, "that in his seed [that is, in Christ] all the nations of the earth should be blessed." When Paul speaks, as he does in numerous instances, of "the hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before the world began," "the promise given before the foundation of the world," "the promise made of God unto the fathers, that God would raise the dead," the date referred to is not when the decree was formed in the eternal counsels of God, previous to the origin of the earth, but when the covenant was made with Abraham, before the establishment of the Jewish dispensation. The thing promised plainly was, according to Paul's idea, a redemption from Hades and an ascension to heaven; for this is fully implied in his "expectation of the resurrection of the dead" from the intermediate state, and their being "clothed in celestial bodies." This promise made unto Abraham by God, to be fulfilled by Christ, "the law, which was four hundred and thirty years afterwards, could not disannul." That is, as any one may see by the context, the law could not secure the inheritance of the thing promised, but was only a temporary arrangement on account of transgressions, "until the seed should come to whom the promise was made." In other words, there was "no mode of salvation by the law;" "the law could not give life;" for if it could it would have "superseded the promise," made it without effect, whereas the inviolable promise of God was, that in the one seed of Abraham that is, in Christ alone should salvation be preached to all that believed. "For if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made useless, and the promise is made useless." In the mean time, until Christ be come, all are shut up under sin. Thirdly, the special "advantage of the Jews was, that unto them this promise of God was committed," as the chosen covenant people.

The Gentiles, groaning under the universal sentence of sin, were ignorant of the sure promise of a common salvation yet to be brought. While the Jews indulged in glowing and exclusive expectations of the Messiah who was gloriously to redeem them, the Gentiles were "aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world." Fourthly, in the fulness of time long after "the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen, had preached the gospel beforehand unto Abraham, saying, In thy seed shall all nations be blessed" "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, that the blessing promised to Abraham might come upon the Gentiles." It was the precise mission of Christ to realize and exemplify and publish to the whole world the fulfilment of that promise. The promise itself was, that men should be released from the under world through the imputation of righteousness by grace that is, through free forgiveness and rise to heaven as accredited sons and heirs of God. This aim and purpose of Christ's coming were effected in his resurrection. But how did the Gentiles enter into belief and participation of the glad tidings? Thus, according to Paul: The death, descent, resurrection, and ascent of Jesus, and his residence in heaven in a spiritual form, divested him of his nationality.13 He was "then to be known no more after the flesh." He was no longer an earthly Jew, addressing Jews, but a heavenly spirit and son of God, a glorified likeness of the spirits of all who were adopted as sons of God, appealing to them all as joint heirs with himself of heaven. He has risen into universality, and is accessible to the soul of every one that believeth. "In him there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free." The experience resulting in a heart raised into fellowship with him in heaven is the inward seal assuring us that our faith is not vain. "Ye Gentiles, who formerly were afar off, are now made nigh by the blood of Christ; for he hath broken down the middle wall of partition between Jews and Gentiles, having abolished in his flesh the enmity, namely, the law of commandments in ordinances, in order to make in himself of twain one new man. For through him we both have access by one spirit unto the Father. Now, therefore, ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of God." Circumcision was of the flesh; and the vain hope of salvation by it was confined to the Jews. Grace was of the spirit; and the revealed assurance of salvation by it was given to the Gentiles too, when Christ died to the nationalizing flesh, rose in the universalizing spirit, and from heaven impartially exhibited himself, through the preaching of the gospel, to the appropriating faith of all.

The foregoing positions might be further substantiated by applying the general theory they contain to the explication of scores of individual texts which it fits and unfolds, and which, we think, cannot upon any other view be interpreted without forced constructions unwarranted by a thorough acquaintance with the mind of Paul and with the mind of his age. But we must be content with one or two such applications as specimens. The word "mystery" often occurs in the letters of Paul. Its current meaning in his time was "something concealed," something into which one must be initiated in order to understand it.