(Continued from page 301, vol. 34, 1916.)

Chapter IX

Misunderstood and Misapplied Texts

Numerous texts will be quoted by some 1| against the views I have been seeking to show are taught in the Old Testament Scriptures. I shall be charged with overlooking such texts unless I take notice of them. Such persons claim that the Scripture statements they rely upon are not ambiguous; that their meaning lies on the very surface for those not already biased, and that in their light all controversy should end.

Now I have shown how the constitution of man is conceived of in the Old Testament. I have shown the view it takes of death. I have also brought forward certain statements about the dead that are thoroughly in accord with what I have gathered as its plain teaching on these two subjects. For those who believe the Scriptures to be the word of God, it is impossible to admit they make contradictory statements:therefore being firmly convinced that the Bible is self-consistent, I approach the consideration of a few examples of the texts referred to without fear of being confounded. Through Satan's wiles, no doubt, a false meaning is arbitrarily imposed on these passages which are triumphantly quoted as disproving the teaching I have shown to be in the Old Testament Scriptures.

I must call attention to the fact that there are two schools of thought in opposition to the views I am maintaining, which are destructive of each other as well. One school (now happily less numerous than in the preceding century) teaches that death ends all; that when man dies he ceases to be. The other holds that man's soul continues to exist after death, but in a dormant, unconscious state. To establish their views, both schools very largely rely on the class of texts which we are now to consider; and it will not be difficult to show that these texts are misunderstood and misapplied.

In Numbers 24:20, speaking of Amalek, Balaam says, "His latter end shall be that he perish for ever." The annihilationist assumes that "perish" means ceasing to be. Having made the assumption, he argues that when Amalek perishes he ceases to be altogether. But, evidently, Balaam speaks of the latter end of Amalek as a nation on the earth. At the time when the nation of Israel shall be first among the nations of the earth, under the rule of her glorious Head, the nation of Amalek shall have been destroyed from the earth. It will be a nation no more. It will be cut off by a sweeping judgment from them that dwell upon the earth, with no revival from it. What may be after death, is not under consideration; that is not the subject of the prophecy.

Let us quote other examples. In Deut. 4:25-28 Moses warns Israel that if, after they have taken possession of Canaan, they corrupt themselves, they will utterly perish from off that land. The question of the continued existence of the soul after death is not under consideration; it is a question of continuing in the land. It is not even a question of dying, as verse 27 clearly shows. " Utterly perish" and "utterly be destroyed " do not even necessarily mean death. If the people are scattered among the nations they have perished from off their own land. As a nation they are destroyed – have no longer any national existence.
The reader will readily find numerous instances of this threat to Israel of perishing from off her land, if unfaithful to God, and I need not cite them. In no case is cessation of the soul's existence after death even implied. I give an example or two of how the term "perish" is used in connection with the wicked. Ps. 37:20:reads, "But the wicked shall perish." This is taken to mean death, and verse 10 of the same psalm is appealed to prove that death means the extinction of the soul as well as the body ! We shall look at this verse later, but just now let us consider the term "perish." It is used not only in connection with the wicked but with the righteous also. In Isa. 57:i we read, " The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart." Does this mean that the righteous altogether cease to be when they die, or that they are cut off from the earth? The latter surely, as verse 2 sufficiently shows. " He" (the righteous who has "perished," who has been taken from the evil to come) "shall enter into peace:they shall rest in their beds, each one walking in his uprightness." It is a clear case in which "perish" does not mean ceasing to be. If, when we are told the righteous perish, we cannot take it in the sense of extinction of being, strong reasons must be produced to show that when the same term is applied to the wicked it means extinction of soul and body.

But, plainly, in psalm 37 it is a question of the portion of the righteous and wicked upon earth. The wicked may be enjoying greater prosperity now, and the righteous suffer severest affliction. But will it always be so ? No, the day is coming when evil-doers will be cut off, and they who wait on the Lord shall inherit the earth (verse 9). The psalm is a prophecy of a judgment upon the wicked which will remove them from the earth, and leave the righteous in undisturbed possession. If it be asked Where will the wicked be after they cease from the earth ? the answer is, If the psalm itself does not tell us, Scripture elsewhere does. Psalm 9 refers to the judgment by which the wicked shall be cleared out of the earth, and declares that they shall be turned into Sheol (ver. 17). Sheol, we have already seen, is the place of the spirits of the dead. The wicked, then, as well as the righteous, continue to exist after death. Furthermore, we have seen that there is consciousness in Sheol. The Scripture doctrines of the continued existence of the soul after death, and of consciousness in that state, are in no wise contradicted by its statements as to men perishing from the earth.

We should give attention to verse 10 of psalm 37 :" For yet a little while and the wicked shall not be:yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be." This has been taken to prove that death ends all, that the cutting off of the wicked from the earth is the utter extinction of both soul and body. But the evident intention of the Spirit in the Psalmist is to declare that the wicked shall be no more on earth. He is not speaking of the soul after death, but of banishment from the earth. Living men on earth are not diligently considering the place of the wicked in Sheol. Psalm 104:35 has a similar statement:" Let the sinners be consumed out of the earth, and let the wicked be no more." Again, it is out of the earth the wicked shall be "consumed." In neither of these verses is the continued existence of the soul denied. To make them mean that, whether through misunderstanding or not, is to falsify their evident meaning.

One more text of the class we are now considering must suffice. Proverbs 2:22 says, "But the wicked shall be cut off from the earth, and the transgressors shall be rooted out of it" (plucked up" in the margin). Again the passage states that it is the removal of the wicked from the earth, and implies their transference to another sphere. The judgment that cuts them off from the earth turns them into Sheol, as we have seen it is elsewhere stated.

All these passages which speak of the cutting off of the wicked refer to judgments on the earth, judgments of a temporal nature, as that of the flood was. In the deluge men were destroyed from off the earth. There is not a word about their condition after it. It was not the design of the record to reveal what comes after their destruction from the earth. If this question is raised we must look elsewhere for its answer, and there is abundance of scriptures to answer it. So as to prophecies of future judgments cutting off the wicked, they are not intended to show what the eternal issues are. Their subject is not what comes after death, but judgment producing death-a judgment in time, not in eternity. To find what the latter is we must consider those scriptures which treat of it.

We turn now to another class of texts, which are triumphantly quoted by those who teach that the death-state is one of unconsciousness, though they allow the continued existence of the soul after death. We shall find the same misunderstanding and misapplication as with the annihilationists.

" For the living know that they shall die:but the dead know not anything, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten" (Eccl. 9:5). It is said, " Is it not explicitly stated here that the dead are in a dormant or unconscious state?" The question betrays a misunderstanding of the writer's purpose. The consciousness of the departed spirit in Sheol is not at all under consideration. The writer of Ecclesiastes, no doubt through the Holy Spirit's guidance, expressly limits himself to what is "under the sun," that is, to man's earthly life. Verse 3 of this same chapter shows this. One event happens to all under the sun. This was a matter of experience, of universal knowledge. Men are born, they live and they die, and none are exempt; and while men live their heart is full of evil. This too was experimental knowledge. It is added, "After that they go to the dead." And what do the dead know of what is under the sun ? is a question which no man can answer without a revelation from God. As far as experience goes one would say, They know nothing; for who has been a witness of the dead having anything to do with earthly human affairs ? We may at once put down all pretension to this as false. We have seen already that what was called consulting the dead, is denounced by God as wickedness. So far as any reliable human testimony is concerned there is none to show that the dead take part in earthly events, To human experience, then, the dead have no part in what is going on under the sun. To apply this passage to the world of spirits is to misapply it, and it is only by misapplication that it can be made to teach a doctrine which has no Scripture support.

A further illustration of this misapplication is found in the use sometimes made of what immediately follows:"Neither have they any more a reward." To apply this in the absolute sense to the dead is to deny that there is any recompense at all after death. But reward after death is not the subject here; it is reward in present human affairs, and the dead have no more any portion in what is under the sun (verse 6). Ecclesiastes 9:5, then, is not the voice of Scripture as to the consciousness of the soul after death, nor that it is dormant between death and the resurrection. Those who so apply it entirely miss its import. Rightly under-, stood, it is seen to be in full harmony with the view of Sheol, which other scriptures plainly give. We must insist that the application made by advocates of the soul's unconsciousness after death is absolutely false.

Mal. 4:1-3 is a favorite passage with both the schools previously mentioned. One of them says it emphatically affirms the non-existence of the wicked after death. The other, applying it to the final judgment, makes it teach the ultimate extinction of all the wicked not finally recovered, but acknowledges that between death and this final judgment the soul continues to exist-but in an unconscious or dormant state. The argument of the former class is that the wicked are burnt up root and branch, and that it means the absolute destruction of the soul as well as the body.

As already shown in other similar passages of the Old Testament, Mal. 4:1-3 speaks of a judgment on the earth. The error we are opposing lies in the assumption that these passages apply to what comes after death, instead of an earthly judgment which completely prostrates the wicked, and exalts the righteous, who shall continue to live on the earth. Malachi prophesies of the triumph of the righteous over the wicked, when they shall be trodden down on the earth. It speaks only of the extermination of the wicked from the earth. It says not a word of their portion after death, which the New Testament fully unfolds to us:"It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment" (Heb. 9:27). It is one thing to say, The wicked shall be as stubble on the earth, quite another to say, They shall be as stubble in Sheol. Plainly, Sheol for them shall be after being as stubble on earth.

Yes, the passage is misapplied when used to uphold the teaching of extinction of both soul and body after death. It may be done ignorantly, but all the same it is a perversion of the passage.

The other class argues that Malachi speaks of a final judgment. They affirm that the results are eternal; that however long the period of judgment may be, the ultimate issue is the complete destruction of all who finally remain wicked. They reason that the wicked dead must be preserved to be raised for this judgment, but are in a dormant state while waiting for it. As already shown, however, the passage does not speak of the dead at all, but of the wicked upon the earth. There is not a word about the resurrection; it is not the prophet's theme. If in the present day the wicked are proud, boastful and intolerant, and the righteous are oppressed, a day is coming in which the tables shall be turned:the righteous shall be exalted and the wicked humiliated. What there is beyond this, the prophet does not say.

These illustrations of misapplied Scripture passages will suffice. They show that the advocates of soul-extinction at death cannot be trusted in their interpretations of Scripture; and those who teach that departed spirits are unconscious are not more trustworthy. There is blindness as to man's constitution; blindness as to the significance of death; blindness as to the eternal issues; as to the scope of God's ways with man on the earth; as to the limitations and point of view in which some statements in Scripture were written, so that what is perfectly true within a certain prescribed sphere, is assumed to be absolutely so.

Readers of Scripture will feel the need to ascertain what is the point of view when considering any particular passage, so as to distinguish between temporal and eternal things, and to keep in mind the difference between the earthly and spiritual spheres. In reading the Old Testament it is important to see that though eternal things are often hinted at, they are but partially revealed; it is mainly occupied with earthly things. C. Crain

(To be continued.)