There are three theories of probation after I death. One maintains that the first 1000 years of the lake of fire will be a probationary period, ending in the release of many from that place. Another view is, that at the second coming of Christ the impenitent of all time will be raised from the dead, and that the purified of all ages, who will be raised some time before them, will preach Christ to them; the vast majority of whom will believe and be saved. The third theory contends that Christ is preached to the dead. Its advocates hold that the disembodied spirit will have the offer of salvation through Christ; that this offer will be made to all who have died unsaved; that the millions of the heathen who have died without hearing of Christ, during the time they are in the disembodied condition will hear of Him and will repent and believe. Some say that the great majority, at least, will do so.

Are these views in accord with Scripture ? Does the word of God teach there will be a probationary period for men after they have died ? A brief examination of a few scriptures will be sufficient to answer these questions.

The first view, the one which maintains that the first 1000 years of the lake of fire will be a time of probation, we may dismiss at once as not needing any discussion. We have already seen in our article on Universalism that the word of God does not teach that any one who goes into the lake of fire will ever get out of it. So any theory of probation for men after they are sent to the lake of fire is without foundation in the word of God. It cannot have any Scriptural basis.

We will, then, turn to the second view. The advocates of this tell us that the wicked will be raised at the second coming of Christ. But Scripture does not place their resurrection at that time. It does speak of the resurrection of two classes-the just and the unjust. According to John 5:, the resurrection of the first class is one to life; while the resurrection of the other class is to judgment. It is plain, then, there are to be two resurrections; the one differing in character from the other. But, further, Rev. 20:shows that there will be a thousand years between the two. Now, it is the first resurrection that is connected with the second coming of Christ-not the second:the resurrection of the just, not the resurrection of the unjust.

The adherents of this view tell us that the tried and purified of all previous ages will indeed be raised
first; and that, after the wicked have been raised, the former class will preach Christ, to the latter. Scripture, on the contrary, tells us that those who belong to the first resurrection will reign with Christ during the thousand years that will intervene between the two resurrections, 1:e., the raised saints will reign over living men-men who have not died. It does not say that they will preach the gospel. They certainly cannot preach the gospel to the wicked, for they will still be in the death state.

Scripture, then, holds out no hope of a man who dies in his sins hearing and believing the gospel after his resurrection. What it says is, "Now is the day of salvation" (2 Cor. 6:2). Now, 1:e., this present life, not after resurrection. The idea of the raised just preaching to the raised unjust is nowhere found in the word of God. It is a fiction, a false doctrine. Let men beware how they listen to it!

It remains to examine the third view of probation after death, 1:e., the view of some who, while they deny the other two views, hold that between death and resurrection there will be a chance for those who have not heard and believed the gospel in this life to hear it and be saved. In defense of this view i Peter 3:18-20 is usually quoted:"For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:by which also He went and preached unto the spirits in prison; which sometime were disobedient, when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was preparing:wherein few, that is, eight souls, were saved by water." It is contended that this passage means that when Christ died He went as a disembodied spirit among disembodied spirits and preached the gospel to them. But is that what the passage says ? Let us look carefully at it and see.

Notice that it reads, " By which also He went and preached." Now it is clear that Christ went and preached by the same Spirit by which His body was quickened after He died. It was the Holy Spirit who raised up the body of Jesus. It was by the Holy Spirit that He went and preached. Christ, then, did not personally go and preach to these spirits in prison. He did go personally among the disembodied spirits, but His personal going among the disembodied spirits cannot be the going to them that is referred to here in i Peter 3:It is of great importance to keep this in mind in reading the whole passage. It will help to elucidate it. Christ went and preached to the spirits in prison, but He did not go personally. He did not preach personally. He both went and preached by the Holy Spirit. The preaching, then, was not done while Christ was personally as a disembodied spirit among the spirits of the departed.

We may ask now, When did Christ go and preach to the spirits in prison ? As it was by the Holy Spirit, it must have been some time when the Holy Spirit was testifying to them. We may also inquire, When did the Spirit testify to these spirits ? Was it before they got into prison ? or was it after ? Now there is no record of the Holy Spirit testifying to departed spirits. Not a single instance can be cited of the Spirit preaching to dead people. There is not so much as one illustration of the Spirit's witnessing to a disembodied spirit. This fact alone is enough to cause us to be suspicious of the teaching that makes the preaching of i Peter 3:19 a preaching to dead people-to departed spirits.

But further, it is plain that the preaching here is to a certain class of the dead-not all the dead. It is to the spirits of men of the days of Noah. If it is said this preaching was to people actually in the death state, we may ask why was it only to the spirits of men who lived in the days of Noah ? Why was it not to all the dead ? So, again, we are led to question the interpretation that makes this preaching to people after they are in the death condition.

But if we turn to Gen. 6:we find that there was a testimony of the Spirit to living men in the days of Noah. The Spirit was striving with them then, and, further, a limit was put to the time during which He would strive with them. "And the Lord said, My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh:yet his clays shall be a hundred and twenty years" (ver. 3). Here we have the Spirit witnessing to living men for one hundred and twenty years before the flood. To this testimony of the Spirit they were disobedient. By the Spirit Noah was a preacher, but the men of his day disobeyed his preaching. It was Christ preaching to them, not personally, but by the Spirit, through Noah.

We have, then, in Gen. 6:the fact referred to in i Peter 3:19-a preaching of Christ by the Spirit to living men who disobeyed the preaching, and are now in prison, 1:e., in the death state. The preaching was done while they were alive; and so, too, was the disobedience. Both were during the long-suffering of God in the days of Noah.

1 Peter 3:19, then, cannot be used to support a theory of probation for men after death; and the prevalent idea that Christ, during the three days in which He was in the disembodied state, was preaching the gospel to the dead has no scriptural basis.

But there are scriptures which very plainly contradict such a thought as an offer of mercy to the impenitent dead. The one we have already quoted to show there will be no preaching of mercy to men after their resurrection, equally shows there will be none to men while in the disembodied state:"Behold, now is the day of salvation" (2 Cor. 6:2)- now, not after death. Then, too, our Lord, in John 8:21, said, " I go My way, and ye shall seek Me, and shall die in your sins:whither I go, ye cannot come." If they died in their sins, death would hand them over to the judgment of the great white throne, and the great white throne would send them to the lake of fire. There is here no hope of mercy held out for those who die in their sins.

Let us look now at Luke 16:19-31. We have already used this passage in a previous paper to show that the dead will not be unconscious. We will look at it now to see what light it sheds on the question of probation after death. We call special attention to verse 26:"And beside 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." In verse 24 we have a man in the death state. He is not a living man on the earth, but a disembodied spirit in the spirit-world-a clear case of one who has died, has passed from among the living, and is now among the dead. There he is in "torments," and desires "mercy." He says, "Have mercy on me." But no mercy is granted him. Not only is there no offer of mercy made him, but his desire for mercy is denied. But more:he is told that "there is a great gulf fixed," separating the dead into two classes. There is a great moral gulf now, in this life, between the believer and the unbeliever, but it is not a fixed gulf in the sense that it cannot be crossed. Grace, the grace of God, has provided a bridge on which the unbeliever may pass to the side of the believer. But after death no such bridge is provided. In the death state the gulf is fixed, and there is no passing from the one side to the other. This makes it plain that eternal issues are settled in this life, and not in the death state.

There is, then, no gospel to be preached to men after they die. Probation for the dead is without foundation in the word of God. Scripture holds out no hope to a man that, if he neglects the salvation God has provided for him in this life, he will have an opportunity to be saved in the life beyond.

Those who are promulgating the doctrine of probation after death are doing man a serious moral wrong. They are deluding them with a false hope. Those who receive the teaching are deceived. A sad present result of embracing the doctrine of a chance for salvation in the life to come is indifference to sin. Men will indulge more freely in what they are persuaded they have a chance of escaping the consequences of hereafter.

We have seen that the doctrine of probation after death, in the various forms in which it is held, is un-scriptural; it has no support in the word of God. We have also pointed out the pernicious character of the doctrine, not only as offering false and delusive hopes to men, but also as tending to make men careless about sin in this present life. We close our brief comments not only with an appeal to men to listen to the voice of the God of truth in the written revelation He has given to us, but with an earnest exhortation to those who believe in the Scriptures of truth to be diligent in protesting against this and other errors so harmful to our fellow-men. Let our voices be heard in the defense of the truth, in maintaining the teaching of the word of God, and in warning men against prevalent doctrines that set false and delusive hopes before them and leave them free to continue on in the service of sin in defiance of God's warning to flee from the wrath to come. C. Crain