If the statements of Scripture concerning immortality were more carefully considered, there would not be so many rash statements made as there are. Inattention to what the word of God says has led to many utterances for which it is not responsible. Through such unscriptural expressions, often urged with a "show of authority, the minds of many have become confused and there is great uncertainty as to what is really the truth.

With a desire to help souls out of perplexity and aid them in forming convictions of what is the truth of God, I seek in the present article to fix attention on a few passages, the right understanding of which is of the first importance, in order to know what is the truth in regard to this subject of so great moment to all. I ask that these passages be weighed; that instead of interpreting them in the light of preconceived and current views, there be an attempt first to ascertain their true force.

First, then, I look at i Tim. 6:16, "Who only hath immortality." It should be plain that this is said of God. God, before whom Timothy is charged, and who, in its proper season, will make visible the manifestation of Jesus Christ, He only hath immortality. He is the living God. He lives from everlasting to everlasting. Life is essentially His. In Him it is intrinsic. He therefore cannot die. But He is the only being who has life in this essential and intrinsic sense. Essential immortality belongs to Him, and to Him alone.

Now while we give our unhesitating consent to this, does it involve our holding that there are no other immortal beings besides God ? Are we necessarily bound to believe that there is no other way of having immortality but the way in which God has it ? If so we must then hold that the angels die. They are living beings surely-living spirits, but do they die ? Are they mortal ? Now our Lord answers this very explicitly in Luke 20:35, 36. Speaking of those accounted worthy to attain to the resurrection from the dead, He says, they "neither marry nor are given in marriage, neither can they die any more:for they are equal to the angels." Angels, then, do not die. They are beings who have immortality, then, in some sense. But in what sense ? In the same in which God has it ? Surely not. To say this would be to array scripture against scripture. In i Tim. 6:the apostle says, "God only hath immortality." In Luke 20:our Lord says the angels do not die, and so declares they have immortality. How are the two assertions reconciled ? Very simply. With God immortality ' is essential, intrinsic, and underived; with the angels it is derived and dependent. Thus the two statements are in perfect accord.

The attentive reader of Scripture will find that wherever it speaks of angels it is consistent with this view of the matter. And not only this, but in its utterances on the judgment of God upon sin we find some remarkable confirmations. For instance, it says in Heb. 9:27, "And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment." It does not say, It is appointed unto angels once ' to die; yet in Jude we read of angels who are reserved for judgment. In Romans 6:23, the apostle says, "For the wages of sin is death." But he is speaking of sin among men, not angels. In these, and similar statements, we have incidentally the recognition of the doctrine of the immortality of the angels.

The voice of Scripture, then, is unmistakable. It affirms that the angels are immortal beings. Its utterances are uniform and consistent. If we bow to Scripture as the voice of God, we must maintain as truth that angels do not die.

And now does Scripture teach that men have immortality? How opposite are the answers different people give to this question. One might think that this shows the voice of Scripture is not clear on this subject. But is it true that the word of God is so equivocal in its utterances on such a vital question as the immortality of men that its teaching cannot be definitely ascertained ? No one that bows to Scripture as the voice of God can possibly think so; and yet how fierce the controversy over the question whether man is mortal or immortal !

That man is mortal in some sense the word of God certainly declares. How formidable a list of passages might be quoted, were it necessary ! But no one denies it. The most ardent advocate of the doctrine that man is an immortal being admits it. There is certainly a sense in which man is mortal. In what sense then? In the sense that the whole of his being is mortal, or only a part of it ?

That man is not all body is distinctly declared by Scripture. "Your whole spirit and soul and body of 1 Thess. 5:23 is sufficiently explicit as to this. Man is a composite being, part spirit, part soul, and part body When the word of God speaks of man as mortal does it apply mortality to all the parts of man's being or only to one? Is it intended we should understand that it includes the spirit and the soul as well as the body ?. Now we have seen that the Lord affirms that angels do not die; and in saying this He teaches that spirits do not die, because angels are spirit. If, then, spirits do not die (and men have spirits) the spirits of men do not die. That men have spirits is made clear, as we have seen by i Thess. 5:23. It is also manifest in Gen. 1.26, seen where man is spoken of as in the image and like-ness of God. It is by his spirit, not his body that he is in the image and likeness of God. By his body he is in connection with the sphere of material things; by his spirit with the sphere of immaterial things. As having an immaterial part, the spirit, he is like God-in His image. By his spirit, then, that part of him by which he is in kinship with angels and God he has immortality, is an immortal being. But it must be remembered that it is not essential immortality This, only God has, as we have already seen. With man as with angels, it is derived immortality-dependent, not intrinsic.

Now, if it is the doctrine of Scripture that spirits do not die, that by his spirit man has an immortal part and is an immortal being, it should be plain that when it speaks of mortality it is speaking of the body Not only does it call the body mortal, as in Rom viii ii, "He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal body, "but al-ways when mortality is mentioned it is in reference to the body. It is the body only that is mortal.

It is said, "The Bible never calls the spirit an im-mortal spirit." True, and there is no need that it should, because spirits do not die. For the same reason it never calls spirits mortal spirits. It is illogical to reason that because spirits are never called im-mortal, therefore they are mortal. Such reasoning is a plain contradiction of the Scripture teaching that spirits do not die. But again, the body is not called an immortal body, because it dies. It has in it the seeds of death. It is a mortal body. Besides, we never find the doctrine of the immortality of the spirit presented as a hope to be attained,
while on the other hand the immortality of the body is. "This mortal shall put on immortality" (i Cor. 15:53). " Mortality " shall be "swallowed up of life" (2 Cor. 5:4) means the body shall be changed into an immortal body. Believers who already have the redemption, or salvation of the soul (i Peter 1:9), are waiting for the redemption of the body (Rom. 8:23).We are, then, immortal j beings, having immortal souls and spirits, but we have mortal bodies which are to be made immortal. And not only will the bodies of believers become i immortal, but also the bodies of the wicked. Heb. 9:27 tells us, "It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment."Now this implies the resurrection of the body, because if the judgment is not until after death, it will not be as long as the body is in the death condition. The bodies of the wicked then will be raised, as Scripture states in John 5:28, 29, and Rev. 20:12, 13. True the body will not be raised "in glory" nor fashioned after the "body of glory" of Christ, but it will be raised, and it will be a body that will not die any more. The wicked receiving their final sentence at the great white throne will go into the lake of fire as complete men their spirits, their souls, and their bodies-to abide there forever. That they will go there Revelation 20:11-15 declares, and that they will abide there forever, our Lord affirms in Mark 9:44, 46, where He says, "Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched." What an awful doom! Thanks be to God for providing an escape from it.

But the teaching of Scripture on immortality is clear and explicit. God only has it intrinsically. Angels have it dependently, and so do men. In this present life, man's body is mortal. In the life to come it will also be immortal, though there will be a "fixed gulf" between the saved and the unsaved; the former shining in the image of Christ, the latter imprisoned in the unending blackness of darkness-the lake of fire. C. Crain.