James Challis

“ Is not this to assert that all are saved in the same sense that some who believe are saved, although there may be difference as to the order or mode of the salvation? We know that in the present age faith avails to save if it rests on the assurance given by the suffering and death of Jesus Christ that by passing through the same gate of suffering we are prepared to enter into life; for such faith yields the fruit of patience and righteousness. ”

“ The future age begins at the termination of the present age, the separation between them being the epoch of a resurrection of the dead—not, however, of all the dead, but "a resurrection of the just," that is, of those who have been prepared and sealed by faith, and suffering, and good works, in the present life, for immediate entrance into a new state of life. ”

“ Paul in Rom. viii. 2 speaks of "the law of sin and death," meaning that sin and death are invariably related to each other as antecedent and consequent. By an irrevocable law {9} death is ordained to be "the wages of sin" (Rom. vi. 23) . Of ourselves we can judge that it does not consist with the power and wisdom of an omnipotent and omniscient Creator that the sinful should live for ever. But if this be so, it must evidently be true also that immortality, being exemption from death, is the consequence of freedom from sin, that is, of perfect righteousness. ”

“ Leaving out of consideration who are the elect, and who not, which God only knows, can we think that the patience of the labourer and artisan, the endurance of the seafaring man, and the devotedness of the soldier, who at the call of duty, and in spite of the promptings of self-preservation, exposes himself to almost certain death on the field of battle, have no relation to their future destiny? ”

“ Sacrifice remained the chief symbol of religious faith up to the time of that great sacrifice of the Son of God, the acceptance of which by the Father sealed the covenant of everlasting life, and made all other sureties sure. The ground of assurance lies in the fact that Jesus Christ in his life and death went through all the experience whereby our spirits are formed for immortality. ”

“ Considering that in all he said and did he had in view his Father's purpose of making the spirits of men meet for immortality, it may be asked, In what way was such teaching contributory to this end? May we not conclude from our Lord's words, apart from all other inferences, that eternal life is necessarily preceded by righteousness, and eternal punishment is as necessarily consequent upon sin, and that the knowledge of these divine decrees contributes to the formation of spirits for the life to come? ”

“ There are other considerations relating to the future judgment which it is necessary to enter into in order to complete the argument for the immortality of all men. We live in a world in which sorrow and pain and death abound everywhere and at all times, and although these are actual consequences of sin, inasmuch as they would be non-existent if sin did not antecedently exist, it is not the less true that the law which in the present time of imperfection connects suffering with sin, tends in its operation towards bringing on eventually a state of perfection. ”

“ The miracles of Christ are an essential part of the work of his ministry, inasmuch as they were needed to prove that he possessed power greater than that of his adversaries, and consequently that he submitted voluntarily to be "led as a lamb to the slaughter," and to endure all the pain and indignities of the cross. Out of love towards those whom he vouchsafes to call his brethren, he showed how they must undergo physical suffering and the pains of death in order that their spirits might be formed for an endless life. ”

“ That suffering is in this manner efficacious is proved by the sacrifice of the Son of God on the cross, who, after having proved by his miracles that he had all human ills under control, voluntarily submitted to be made perfect by enduring shame and pain, that thus he might both exemplify and justify the ways of God in the creation of immortal spirits. This sacrifice is a full and sufficient explanation of all the evil in the world. ”

“ After long attention given to the acquisition of such knowledge, I seem to see that it points to the conclusion that all the forces of nature are resident in a universal aetherial medium, extending through all space, and pervading all visible and tangible substances, by the intervention of which all power is exerted, whether it be by the immediate will of God, or mediately, by that of angels or of men. ”

“ And every created thing which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all things in them, were heard to say, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever. ”

“ And since with the victory over the spirit of evil an end is put to evil itself, the promise is, in effect, that Adam and his race shall eventually be exempt from death and evil, and partake of a happy immortality. ”

“ There is, in short, no act or experience in human life which in this respect is indifferent. But what the spirit is thus made during its passage through this life, such it is when it is taken into the hands of its Creator, and such, as we may conclude from the teaching of Scripture and from its having in the mean time existed apart from body, it will be, with all its imperfections, on the day of its resurrection. It has already been maintained that, because of imperfection, it is necessary that even the elect should be judged, to the end that by this means their spirits may be made perfect. ”

“ Now, Satan, the beast, and the false prophet, being regarded as personal existences motived by will, and in that respect unlike Death and Hades, are cast not simply into a lake of fire, but into a lake burning with brimstone, which apparently signifies that from the time these "adversaries" cease to have cognizable existence, their antecedent power and influence will be regarded by those who were once subject to them with antipathy and abhorrence, so that any return to the same subjection will (as we say) be morally impossible. When in the end God has become "all in all," no antagonism remains ”

“ AN ESSAY ON THE SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY. Considering that under the existing conditions of humanity, disease, and decay, and death abound on every side, it is surprising that the word "immortality" obtained a place in systems of philosophy, the authors of which must be supposed to have been unacquainted with divine revelation. It is not surprising that in the absence of such aid the belief of immortality should not have been firmly held, or that by some philosophers it should have been expressly disavowed. ”

“ To reconcile this revelation, so intelligible and so comprehensive, with the meaning of passages which seem to say that the punishment of the wicked will be 'endless,' presents a very great difficulty. We are not at liberty in such cases to accept some parts of Scripture and reject others in order to get rid of the difficulty, but must believe that the truth, if it should be reached, will establish the consistency of all, and that seeming contradictions are only due to our ignorance. ”

“ The apostle John tells us that although all unrighteousness {87} (adikia, transgression of the strict law of Christ) is sin, there is sin of a believing brother which is not unto death, and may be repented of in this world; and there is sin unto death, respecting which prayer for repentance would be unavailing (1 Epist. v. 16, 17) . This is "the blasphemy of the Spirit," which is not forgiven in this world, because forgiveness implies repentance; neither is it forgiven in the world to come, because beyond the grave there is no repentance. ”

“ Accordingly, Scripture must be consulted in order to learn what God has willed respecting the destiny of man. The principal result of this inquiry is, that by the will of God righteousness and salvation are so inseparably connected that only as being personally righteous can man be saved and partake of immortality. The question, therefore, as to the immortality of all men resolves itself into inquiring whether, and by what means, all men are made righteous. ”

“ Although the evidences of an immortal destiny may be in us and around us, they cannot be discerned apart from enlightenment by a divine revelation as to the purpose and end of the whole creation.
The Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments profess to be a revelation of the mind and will of the Creator of all things. If they are really such, they must be capable of giving the information which, as said above, is necessary for certifying the doctrine of man's immortality. ”

“ The feeble worm which feeds on mortal remains presents to our sight nothing capable of causing pain or misery. Rather it may, I think, be asserted that Scripture here adverts to this natural fact for the purpose of indicating by a distinct and visible emblem that there is a living principle which destroys mortality, and which for that reason alone is not itself subject to death. If we be guided solely by what we see with our eyes, this appears to be the only allegorical sense that can be attributed to the first clause of Mark ix. ”

“ Amid the great diversity of views that exists relative to modes of interpretation, it may safely be maintained that the foremost and chief requisite for making true deductions from the Scriptures is to have confidence in them as being depositions of Divine wisdom. Men of science, in their endeavours to discover the secrets of Nature, are baffled again and again, and yet by little and {8} little they obtain accessions to knowledge just because they never doubt but that Nature, if rightly interrogated, will give them true answers. ”

“ The modern advances in physical science, which have shown in what path we must proceed in order to reach a knowledge of God's works, indicate, it may be presumed, that an analogous method is to be pursued in order to gain a knowledge of His word. But it will, perhaps, be said, that if the knowledge of what is revealed in Scripture be obtainable only by means such as those which have been exemplified in this Essay, the considerations that must be entered into are so remote from common apprehension, that but very few can be supposed to be endowed with capacity for understanding them. ”

“ There is no longer an altar, because the acceptance of the covenant is not, as in the Jewish worship, indicated by sacrifice, but by partaking of food in the forms of bread and wine at "the table of the Lord." The Christian minister, in delivering these symbols to the worshippers, gives, in virtue of his mediating office, sureties for the fulfilment of the covenant of eternal life; the worshipper who partakes of them in faith receives them as such sureties, and looks for the fulfilment of the covenant. ”

“ These sacrifices, being offered immediately after the world had been destroyed by the baptism of the Flood, were peculiarly significant of an understanding and acceptance of the covenant of a life to come. After the mention made in the Epistle to the Hebrews of the faith and obedience of which Noah gave evidence by building the ark, it is said of him that "he thereby became heir [inheritor] of the righteousness which is according to faith" (Heb. xi. 7) . Such righteousness, we have already argued, entitles the possessor of it to immortality. ”

“ On account of this law of progressiveness, the spirit of a child, as we can all see, differs in its feelings and its understanding from that of a man. In short, spirit perfected is the principle of immortal life. Now, during our waking hours our spirits are replete with consciousness and thought, which, however, at the moment of falling asleep depart from us. ”

“ Hence the inquiry respecting the means by which man is made immortal resolves itself into inquiring by what means he is made righteous; and, as the first step in this inquiry, we have to consider what Scripture says concerning the entrance of sin and death into the world. If sin be defined to be doing what is contrary to the will of God, as expressed by a command, righteousness, being its opposite, will consist in acting according to His will. ”

“ This may especially be said of the discourses of our Lord, in consequence of which they are much misunderstood by the many who are incapable of discerning the spiritual through the literal, who, as he said, 'have eyes and see not, and ears and hear not.' Assuming, therefore, that there is truth in speaking of righteousness and life as being necessarily connected, as also of sin and punishment as being in like manner connected, we have to inquire in what way these abstract truths are expressed in the language of Scripture. ”

“ We have reason from Scripture to say that such conditions of life, if united with the faith that looks for better things to come, may be counted among means ordained by God for preparing the spirits of His elect for their destined inheritance ("Hate not laborious work, neither husbandry, which the Most High hath ordained" [Ecclesiasticus vii. 15] ) . And where such faith is absent, may we not still say that conditions of the present life to which the great mass of mankind are {54} subject must be contributory to forming their spirits for their future existence? ”