1. The Nature of Man.- Adventists and Conditionalists alike teach that it is the body of the man, living or dead, which carries personality. Scripture shows that personality is attached rather to that which dwells within the body. We get the truth "as the truth is in Jesus" (Eph. 4:21). Jesus distinguishes Himself from His body (John 2:19-22; 10:15-18; Luke 23:43). The Person, the "I," "Me," of Jesus, could be apart from the body, and have power to raise it up, and meanwhile be with the "thou" of the thief in paradise. So with Paul and believers (2 Cor. 5:1-8; 12:1-3:Phil. 1:21-25; 2 Pet. 1:13, 14; 1 Cor. 2:11; Zech. 12:1). The texts usually quoted to prove that the body is all give only a materialistic view of man, and are only half the truth; or it would follow that between His death and resurrection there was nothing of the Savior, except what lay in Joseph's tomb. For three days the world was without a Savior. Incarnation would be needed again, rather than resurrection, and the Savior on the fourth day would not be the same Person. This would be to blaspheme (Heb. 13:8).

2. Eternal Life and Immortality.-Adventists make these the same thing, and teach that they are a future reward of good works at the Lord's coming. Free, sovereign grace, as taught by Paul (Rom. 4:4, 5; 5:17; 6:23; Eph. 2:7, 8), and the gift and present possession of eternal life, as taught in the gospel and epistles of John, are denied, though so true and blessed (John 3:36; 5:24; 6:54; 10:27-29; 1 John 5:11-13, 20; 3:15). Just as " no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him," the sons of God have eternal life abiding in them even now; and of this it can be said, " Which thing is true in Him and in you." But as to their bodies, they will only put on immortality when the Lord comes (1 Cor. 15:53, 54). Jesus showed what "eternal life was (John 17:3), and credited the disciples with the possession of it then, in knowing the Father and owning that He had sent the Son (Jno. 5:25, 26). Yet they died; so they had eternal life though not immortality, as they will have that at the resurrection. But this leaves untouched the fact that though "mortal" is applied to the body, it is not said of the soul. That "God only hath immortality" (1 Tim. 6:16) does not prove that men's souls and spirits are mortal, or the same may be said of angels. God alone possesses immortality in Himself, un-derived; but by and in Him men and angels subsist (Acts 17:28; Heb. 1:7; Col. 1:17).

3. Death and Existence and Consciousness Thereafter.

-Adventists teach that the state of the dead is that of "silence, inactivity, and entire unconsciousness." Scripture applies " dead" to the prodigal, and to sinners active in sin (Luke 15:24; Eph. 2:1-5). The one that lives in pleasure is dead while she liveth (1 Tim. 5:6; John 5:25). The germ in the grain of wheat, nor the human personality in Jesus, did not cease to exist by death (John 12:24; 1 Cor. 15:36-3.8). By virtue of the new life he has in Christ, the believer is free from the law of sin and death (Jno. 5:24; Rom. 5:18; 6:11; 8:2; Col. 3:3, 4). If the "me" of Rom. 8:2 died in Rome, that scripture is untrue; but if it is true, Adventist teaching is false. False it is, as the new man is of the last Adam, new creation, incorruptible, and from heaven (1 Pet. 1:23; Eph. 2:10; 4:24; 2 Cor. 5:17; 1 Cor. 15:45-48; 2 Tim. 1:10). For the believer, Christ has abolished death; he can say, " Death is ours." So Lazarus, Stephen, Paul, like the one who was a thief, have been in the conscious enjoyment of the Lord's presence for about eighteen hundred years. Even the unsaved, though dead, as to men, all live unto God (Luke 20:37, 38). That " the dead praise:not," or "know not any thing," is spoken from where we are-"under the sun," and does not take in the unseen condition of spirits (2 Cor. 4:18; Luke 16:19-31; 9:2!)-36; Rev. 6:9-11).

4. Destiny of The Wicked.-Adventists say that the wicked, finally, will be "consumed root and branch, becoming as though they had not been." The proofs are mostly from the Old Testament, which treats of the cleansing of the earth by judgment in the setting up of the earthly reign of Christ. Scripture says explicitly that it is "in the earth" not when it has passed away (Ps. 8:6-11; 101:6-8; Mal. iv). This is the judgment of the quick, the living, previous to the millennium; whereas Adventists take the texts and apply them to the. judgment of the dead, over 1000 years afterward, and in eternity. So, to prove annihilation, they are convicted of "handling the Word of God deceitfully." "Destroy," in Scripture, means the ruin of the thing as to the purpose for which it was designed, not that the thing is rendered as though it had not been. The steamer " Quetta " is destroyed, but divers have seen her at the bottom of the sea. The destroyed antidiluvians are the "spirits in prison " in Peter's day (Gen. 7:23; 1 Pet. 3:19-20). So as to Israel (Deut. 25:61-63; 30:1-3). Likewise, "everlasting destruction" and "to destroy both body and soul in hell," are not annihilation; but as the condition of the impenitent remains unchanged, the punishment will of necessity be eternal (Matt. 10:28; 2 Thess. 1:9; Rev. 15:11 ; 2 Cor. 4:18). It may be urged, " God is love," but love is not God. Did His wrath come on Jesus? Yes. Then dare you say that if a finite being suffers forever, he will suffer more than the infinite and eternal Son suffered while He was under divine wrath? A God of love caused the latter, why not the former, especially if you reject His Son? (1 Cor. 16:22; Heb. 10:28-31; 12:25-29.)