Both Speakers Make Telling Points and Earn Much Applause
Standing room was at a premium in Allegheny Carnegie Music hall last night where the third joint debate between the Rev. Dr. E. L. Eaton of the North Avenue Methodist Episcopal church, Allegheny, and Pastor C. T. Russell of the Bible House congregation opened. The entire floor, gallery and the vestibule leading to the big hall were crowded with people. The audience was probably the largest since the debate began last Sunday afternoon.
The Rev. J. W Sproull, D. D., presided at the meeting, and after announcing the subject for discussion introduced the debaters. Besides the discussion of the subject, there was a lively and learned debate on the Hebrew words, their definition and application as used in the Scriptures. During the discussion the original subject was almost lost sight of for a time while the speakers discussed Hebrew words.
The usual devotional exercises preceded the discussion and a number of hymns were rendered during and at the close of the speeches. Prof. B. Frank Walters of the Bible House congregation, presided at the organ. The stage was occupied by a large number of ministers.
The subject of the debate last night was that "The Scriptures clearly teach that all of the saved will become spirit beings, and after the general judgment will enter heaven."
Dr. Eaton affirmed and Pastor Russell denied. Dr. Eaton opened the affirmative side as follows:
Mark Hopkins was one of the most distinguished teachers that this country ever produced, and he had a way of teaching what he thought was truth and what was false in evolution, and I will give you a little idea of his that will become the basis of the doctrine I am going to speak of tonight, namely, regeneration. His idea was that the first great law of nature, the most extensive and universal, was the law of gravity, and the next law of nature, not so extensive, but more intensive, was the law of cohesion, which held the particles of matter together. Gravity pulls down, but cohesion holds together in spite of gravity, so that the former is a law higher than the latter, but does not grow out of the latter, it contains all there is in gravity plus something more, and that something more is from above, and comes by a creative act. It is not therefore evolution, that is, atheistic evolution, but evolution by creation.
Next above cohesion we get chemical affinity, higher than cohesion, containing all there is of cohesion, gravity and chemical affinity plus something more, and that something is from above, by creation. Next is the law of vegetable life. We have the vegetables that contain all the first three principles in operation, and something above, the product of a creative act. When we reach life, we reach the great question that has been occupying the minds of scientists specially for the past fifty years and particularly the last twenty-five. Such men as Hegal, Huxley, Spencer, M. Pasteur and Tyndall, keenest brains, are practically agreed that life comes from preexistent life, that dead matter cannot become living matter until it comes under the influence of matter previously alive. Life is a creation from God.
I am an evolutionist of that kind, theistic evolution. Science stands by that, and I stand by science.
Next above life is the production of species. Charles Darwin spent his life in trying to show that species originated by natural causes, but Huxley before his death, stated that to place Darwin's doctrine beyond a possibility of assault, ought to have shown two things, namely, that varieties within one species could be so widely divergent by raising or breeding as to be no longer fertile one with another; secondly, that hybrids could be made fertile. Neither of these propositions is sustained, and Darwin's doctrine falls to the ground.
Next above the animal kingdom is man; his body, [HG127] which is like every other animal, only a little better built, although I have seen some men that do not seem to be so handsome as dogs, and some women that are more homely than horses. But man was made of the dust of the ground, of material things, just as the tower animals were. In many respects the animals excel as animals, not in all; the superiority of man is not in this physical nature chiefly. I thoroughly believe the word of God, which states that he formed man's body of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. He breathed something into that body, the breath of life. In the Hebrew whenever animals are said to have the breath of life it is always the word ruach chai, although it is never said to have been breathed into animals; when man is said to have the breath of life it is always nishma chai? All men and animals died at the flood "in which was the breath of life"' nishmaruach chai' the combination showing that destruction of both animals and men.
But man does not stop when he has a soul. That soul is a mortal soul, in the sense I described the other night, in the sense that there is no self-existent condition; in the sense that it was made to live, and not to die; in this only is it properly a living soul' it is nowhere in the Scriptures called an immortal soul. The soul's nature is to live, and therefore it cannot sleep or go into none-existence; it is a living soul.
Originally it was sinless, but it lost that, as our brother taught the other night.
Depravity has smitten the race. What is depravity? It is a moral twist. Depravity does not add any faculty; it does not add any intellectual or physical or moral faculty; but it does subtract, blur, weaken them. We all come into the world with that twist, but, thank God, we come with a Redeemer already provided.
When a man builds a state he founds a prison; when God established the world He provided a Redeemer. My brother said that in Christ, as the seed, all the families of the earth shall be blessed; they are being blessed. There would have been no one blessed if it had not been for Christ. God was not mean enough to make Adam and Eve the father and mother of the race without a Redeemer, and therefore He has blessed every man, woman and child of the race. They are all blessed in Christ.
The spiritual nature comes by regeneration. The animal condition is gravity, cohesion, chemical affinity, vegetable life, plus; man is animal, vegetable and all below it, plus. Plus what? Plus the soul. But does he stop when he gets a soul?
No; man is soul, animal, vegetable, and all below, plus a spirit nature. How does spirit come to him? By regeneration. God did not make him a spirit being originally; man was originally a bichotonate' having two parts, having a body and soul. When he becomes regenerated he is a trichotonate' three parts, body, soul and spirit. That which makes one a trichotonate is a thing' not a quality nor an attribute nor an experience; but a thing, as a body is a thing, a soul is a thing, an identity; a spirit entity is bestowed upon us, or comes within us, in regeneration.
Go to the first chapter of John, and there you strike regeneration squarely. Until you get to John you would never dream that there is any such thing as regeneration. Matthew, Mark or Luke say nothing of it. How did Matthew get people saved? He said, "Accept the Messiah and join the procession." But John did not teach that. You cannot be saved by joining the church, nor the procession.
You have got to have regeneration, by the power of the Holy Ghost, in this life!
(Applause) The first chapter of John has these words, "To those that received Him, to them gave He power (right, authority) to become the children of God." Were they not children before? No. I repudiate this nonsense that is going about all over the country that everybody is a child of God because he is a human being; that is unscriptural. God's children are those who are born again, by the power of the Holy Ghost. (Applause) We hear much of the brotherhood of man, which I affirm, and the Fatherhood of God, which I deny. It is not a corollary. I believe in the unity of humanity, but not that mankind belongs to God unless they get to Him by regeneration. This text proves it. You cannot be born saved, as the followers of Islam believe; you cannot be born saved, as the Catholics believe; nor as [HG128] some of the members of the Methodist church believe. Belonging to a church won't save anybody. Nothing can save you but being born of the Holy Ghost. That is the doctrine of regeneration squarely.
We have this again in the third chapter of John, "Except a man be born from above he cannot inherit the kingdom of God. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh;" that is simple. "That which is born of the spirit (meaning the Holy Ghost) is a spirit." Manufacturing Scripture again, am I? I said I had a right to manufacture Scripture, to borrow Paul's and Peter's direction. Why do I put in "a" there?
Because every Greek scholar knows that when a noun has no article before it he must put in an indefinite article in order to make sense. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; that which is born of the spirit is spirit."
Now you have your spiritual nature, a deposit from the Holy Ghost in men, an entity, not a quality, a faculty; but a thing from God. You are a trichotomy, a three-part being, body, soul and spirit; you are complete now. It goes on to say, "Except a man be born of water and the spirit he cannot see the kingdom of God."
In regeneration there are two distinct things to think of. One is, the soul needs cleansing of its impurity. It is crooked; it needs straightening; it is weak, it needs strengthening. All the work upon the soul is symbolized by water' baptism, if you choose; immersion, if you choose. I take the whole thing and won't quarrel about it.
Water is the symbol of what is to be done to the soul. Depravity must be cured, and is cured by regeneration. The other part is the importation of the divine nature, by what is called the breathing in of the spirit. That is the doctrine of regeneration; that is the great thing to be done to the soul in human life, if he is ever made a child of God. The Bible does not call him a child of wrath, a child of the wicked one' anything but a child of God. I do not frequently use the word, "a child of the devil," because if I had a son who was wicked and remained unconverted, and I called him a child of the devil, it might reflect on me. But if he went to the devil I guess he would have to be called that.
"There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body"' " natural" here is from the Greek psuche, which means soul, translated seven times soul and 41 times life in the New Testament. "There is a soulical body"' I am making an adjective now to fit the word' a soulical body; I am looking at a thousand soulical bodies now' humanbeings. "There is a soulical body and there is a pneumaticon body."
The pneumaticon body is the one that you will have in the resurrection. "The first man Adam was made a living soul"' psuche. You cannot find an Old Testament text that calls an unconverted unregenerate man a spirit or a spiritual man. Oh, yes, it speaks of Pharoah having "lost his spirit." The word ruach is sometimes used in the psychological sense for mental state; when Pharoah lost his spirit he lost his courage. But you cannot find the word applied literally to any unregenerate unconverted man in the Bible. "The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven." "On heaven," says the revised version.
The old translators thought there was a contrast here between the Lord and Adam; it is not so at all; it is a contrast between the first and the second man, between "I," unregenerate, on the one hand and "I," regenerate, on the other.
A spiritual man belongs to another species; he is not another variety of man; he belongs to spiritual and heavenly things. Where shall I place him? Not in another form, but in another kingdom. I am just a common Methodist preacher, but I don't preach any more that regeneration means merely quitting your meanness, although I would like to have that; I don't mean that regeneration is merely being good. I teach, on the authority of science and the Word of God that in order to be a spiritual man you will have to be made so by the power of the Holy Ghost.
"The psuche man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, for they are spiritually discerned." You have to be regenerated to see spiritual things. That is why so many unregenerated fools go about and say "I don't think there is anything in the Bible." They are psuche men. They are not regenerated.
Our Lord in dying spoke of his "spirit"' pneuma, as did Stephen, but of unregenerate persons in the New Testament this word is not used. Ananias and Sapphira are referred to as giving up the ghost' psuche. Jude 9, the apostle in describing terribly wicked people, who did not have a spirit nature, and refers to them as psuchechon, soulical people. Peter tells us about exceeding great and precious promises whereby we are made partakers of the divine nature. Do we become divine and become gods? I do not say that at all; we are made partakers of the divine nature, by being regenerated; but imputed a child of God, not politically a child of God, not incorporated a child of God, nor adopted a child of God' heis made a child of God. That is where God gets His children, by nature, by nature they become His, by the incoming of His own nature.
To every son of Adam's race, if they turn to God as loyal children. He will give them the great and precious promises to become His spiritual children. Little children when they come to years of accountability, if they follow the right will receive it unconsciously, and it will be a normal thing, so that they cannot recognize the time when they became God's children, as thousands of Christians today cannot recognize such a time. If those children die before accountability I do not know what will be their conditions, nor does anybody else know; but we have the Lord's words, "Of such is the kingdom of heaven." God will provide some method of regeneration, and they must get regeneration before they will be made angels. If a man backslides, what comes in? Does he lose his spirit nature?
No, but he perverts it, and it becomes devilish, just as those who were possessed of the evil spirits in our Lord's time. He is more able to do devilish things than he was before, and the last state of that man is worse than the first.
A hymn was rendered by the audience at the conclusion of Dr. Eaton's speech and then Pastor Russell arose and said in reply:
I have great pleasure in being able to agree to much that our dear brother has presented this evening, but not all. I have special pleasure in noticing his keen line of demarcation between the animal and the spirit being, that which is begotten of the flesh and that which is begotten of the spirit, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit."' that these must be "born again," that is to say, that all who are called to be God's people in this present time must be begotten of the spirit and must ultimately be born of the spirit, else they cannot enter the kingdom of God, they can have no part or place in that great kingdom of Christ, the millennial kingdom, which is to bless the whole world of mankind, and bring order out of present confusion. You see that I thus agree with much our brother said, respecting bichotomy and trichotomy, that the natural man, the animal man, is along the lines of the flesh, earthly. He cannot receive, appreciate or understand the things of the spirit. Only those who are begotten of the spirit can understand spiritual things.
I am glad to notice that our brother has a measure of future probation also. I do not know whether you noticed that or not, because it is quite a step of progress for our brother. He has been somewhat converted since our last meeting! (loud applause) Our brother notices that the children are not begotten of the spirit unless they accept the privilege at maturity. Our brother notices that none of those who preceded our Lord's first advent were begotten of the spirit. They all went to hades, to sheol, and he says that they never can become spirit being until they be begotten of the spirit, and we agree to that. Our brother seems to have the impression that somehow they will become spirit, and that all children who die in infancy and before they are begotten, will have that privilege some time in the future.
Our dear brother is more of an evolutionist than we claim to be. We do not find any evolution in the Bible, and therefore we have none of it in our view. "The world by wisdom know not God," therefore we shall not attempt to prove anything by Darwin, Huxley or any other worldly-wise man! (Applause)
Now to come back to this matter as a whole' while these different topics are discussed separately they are all connected, and some features previously mentioned must be considered. I have great respect for the Old Testament as well as the New, and I do not forget that our Lord when he quoted always used the Old Testament, and the apostles always quoted from the Old. There wasn't any New Testament to quote from! (Applause) The Apostle Paul write to Timothy, "The word of God is able to make thee wise unto salvation," and he referred to the Old Testament, the only word of God there was at that time.
We agree with our brother that none are immortal. There is no suggestion that immortality was possessed by Adam or anybody naturally. There is a promise of immortality, a hope of immortality, and we are exhorted to "seek for glory, honor, and immortality," and nobody seeks for what they have. The apostle declares, "God only hath immortality, dwelling in light which no man can approach unto."
Now we come to a little difference. Our brother holds that in sheol there is consciousness, and he has three texts represented on his chart to prove it' theyare all he has' barringthose texts which represented the dancing of devils when the king of Babylon was coming down, which we pointed out previously as highly figurative, representing the terrible fall of Babylon from its exalted position to a condition of overthrow and silence, death, the tomb. But the three texts which are held by our brother are:
(1) Tartarus, a word which occurs but once in the scriptures, and it is not used in respect to men at all, [HG130] but to those angels which kept not their first estate, and were cast down to Tartarus, signifying the atmospheric heaven where these fallen beings have been confined, "restrained under chains of darkness," that they should not assume human form again and must operate through spirit mediums and as they have always sought to do through wizard, witches, etc., God restraining them from any communication directly. They are evil spirits which personate the dead and represent that they are the dead.
Second' The words of the Lord to the dying thief, who asked, "Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom." We won't dispute that the thief went to hades, but did he get paradise there? Paradise once existed in Eden; it was a paradise, a garden of God; but that paradise was lost through sin and disobedience, and God in His Word has promised that through the redemption' that is, in Christ Jesus – paradise shall be restored in the millennial kingdom. But there is no paradise now. The thief's request was, "Remember me when thou comest into the kingdom," and our Lord's reply, "Verily, verily," was in effect, "So be it, amen, amen;" in other words, the Lord was promising him what he had asked. But did the Lord come into his kingdom that day? Surely not. He was in the tomb for three days, and even after his resurrection the kingdom was not attained, else why do we still pray, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."
The thief will remain in the place of silence and lack of knowledge, the tomb, until the voice of the Great Deliverer shall call him forth, with all others purchased by the precious blood, in the time when the prophecy shall be fulfilled, "The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because He hath anointed me to preach the good tidings to the meek, to set at liberty the captives and them that are bound." This was not fulfilled in our Lord's first advent, because He left even John in prison, instead of releasing him from the thraldom of present evil conditions, but the prophecy will be fulfilled when our Lord takes unto himself His great power and begins His reign, when He shall say to all the prisoners of the tomb, "Go forth, and to those who sit in darkness show yourselves!"
I will read this text, which our brother sets so much store by, and show you how consistent it is with all, other portions of the divine plan. It could more properly be translated, "Verily, verily, I say unto thee this day, thou shalt be with me in paradise." What change have I made? Simply the transposition of a comma, and we have just as much fight to put the comma one place as another, as anyone else has, for the punctuation marks were never inspired. (Applause) The same use of language is illustrated in the various uses of the expression. "This day," in the eleventh chapter of Deuteronomy, where the prophet Moses is charging this people "this day" to observe and keep the commandments of God' not that they were all to be kept that day, but the command was given then.
Our Lord was not in paradise, but in hades, and the apostle exhorted when he declared that God in His great power delivered him from hades in order that he might accomplish his glorious work in due time. Hades was not a desirable, happy, blissful place to be, but our Lord wasn't there because it was of that character, but because it was necessary for him to die on behalf of the race in order to redeem them' to go into absolute death as a payment of their penalty.
The third text is the "gulf" text. We will get to it in the last session, where it properly belongs, and then our dear brother won't need his chart any longer, for it will take away his last text in support of the intermediate state. (Laughter and applause) The reward of the good and the wicked comes not when they die, but at the resurrection of the dead. That there is no promise of punishment to the wicked or reward to the righteous until the resurrection I present a few texts. Peter says, "The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptation, and to reserve the unjust to the day of judgment to be punished." Maybe Peter didn't know, but we think he did. The other text is found in Luke, our Lord's words; our Lord was commending those who would give a cup of cold water or any kindness in his name. They were to call the poor and the impoverished and make a feast to them.
For they cannot recompense thee; thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just." (Applause) Did our Lord know when they would be recompensed? We are sure He did, and that Peter also spoke by inspiration.
Going back to Father Adam, created as our brother expressed it, a soulical man, or, as the common version gives it very well for our purpose, an animal man' not a brutish man, but an animal, .earthly being, in God's image in the qualities of his heart, his mind, his will, in that he was able to reason exactly and intelligently.
In this condition God pronounced him "very good"' grand indeed the first pair must have been! Then the scriptures proceed to say there was a fall from likeness to God; degradation took the place of perfection, death took the place of the life [HG131] given to our first parents, and gradually increasing depravity, until the race today is what we see it, comparatively poor in many respects.
Look, for instance, at the physical quality. Adam the perfect man, able to live 930 years, under the unfavorable conditions of his time. Today we think people who can live a hundred years are living a long time, with all the help of doctors, hospitals and surgery to their advantage. But the perfect man was able to live 930 years notwithstanding death had hold of him and was hurrying him down to the great prison house. The whole human family have gone down with him, but the whole human family has had a Redeemer provided for them.
I was glad our brother brought that point in' " that all are blessed in the Redeemer." I was glad he seems to realize that in some way Christ's redemptive work was applicable to the whole world of mankind. What has Christ done for the world? Let him answer himself when he says, "I came to seek and to save that which was lost." What was lost? An angelic nature? No, man was created on the human plane. That which was lost was redeemed. What therefore will be restored in due time, when the Lord begins his work of blessing, will be that which was possessed by Adam in the beginning, and representatively by him for the whole race' the. glorious perfection of human nature, pronounced "very good" by God himself.
Man lost not only perfect physical form, but all the mental and moral qualities constituting him an image of God were impaired and injured; but they were all included in the redemption, and God has provided a time of restoration of these to man. When? In the millennial kingdom; when that kingdom shall come for which we are praying, when God's will shall be done on earth as it is done in heaven, when these poor creatures who have been falling mentally and morally and physically, weakened and unable to help themselves, shall have the mighty power of the Savior to lift them up to perfection, if they will be submissive to the influences of divine regulation then.
We are doing. our best today to help the world to a better condition, with social uplifts of various kinds, and we would like to do much more for them than our frail conditions will permit us to do' we stand aghast at the enormous needs in these directions, but thank God, the time is coming when the completely perfect power shall be exercised, when Christ shall take unto Himself His power and begin His reign. (Applause)
I would like to mention a point in full accord with what our brother has said; throughout the entire Old Testament from the first verse of Genesis to the last of Malachi there is not a solitary statement to the effect that God applies heavenly or spiritual things to any soul of man during that time; not one reference to going to heaven, not one reference to being begotten of the spirit. Why? Because that was not God's plan. The time of offering the blessing of spiritual nature had not come.
It came exactly when our Lord came. I have some of the same Scriptures for your attention that have been quoted to you.
As, for instance, the declaration of John, "He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not; He came unto His own, and His own received Him not, but as many as received Him to them gave He power (privilege, liberty) to become sons of God." None were granted the privilege of being sons of God before. The very highest privilege in the Jewish dispensation was a position as a servant. The Apostle Paul states this when he says "Moses was faithful as a servant over his house; but Christ as a son over His own house, whose house are we, if we hold fast the beginning of our confidence firm unto the end." We are the house of sons; this house of sons began with the Redeemer; He is the forerunner, and the church are the members of His body who follow after Him. He is "the head over all things to the church which is His body." None went before Him, none could possibly precede Him in this glorious company, otherwise He would not properly have been the head.
Now notice what the ancient worthies did look for. Read in the scriptures what God promised to Abraham: "Look now from the place where thou art, northward and southward and eastward and westward, all the land that thou seest to thee will I give it, and unto thy seed after thee for an everlasting possession." Heavenly things? To sit with Christ in the throne? No! "All the land that thou seest," forever! Stephen refers to this promise, saying, 'Tie came into this land, and God gave him none inheritance in it, no, not so much as to set his foot on, though he promised it to him for a possession and his seed after him, when as yet he had no child."
Stephen evidently realized that Abraham was to get his possession at a future time, or else God's promise, in his mind, was a false statement! And so we read, in the ninth chapter of Amos, "They shall sit every man under his own vine and fig tree," and "they shall plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them, build houses and [HG132] inhabit them." Do spirit beings sit under fig trees? Is that the promise made to the house of sons of the present time? No, no! To the kings and priests, the Church of Christ now being chosen, the blessings are spiritual, of a heavenly kind.
In Hebrews eleven, the apostle, after citing these ancient worthies, said, "These, all having died, in faith, received not the promise, God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect." "Some better thing"' for whom? For the church, the house of sons; better than what God provided for the house of servants. The thing provided for the house of servants are good things, but those provided for the house of sons are still better things.
"Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him"' for the church class, those whom "he is not ashamed to call his brethren."
Those Who lived prior to the gospel age are noble characters' Abraham was a wonderful character, and John the Baptist, the last of the prophets, of whom our Lord said, "The least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he!" John could not be of the kingdom class; he said: "I am the friend of the bridegroom" – not the bride, or a member of the bride class, the church. That was as far as John's mission went.
Our brother pointed out the other evening that our Lord brought immortality to light. I would like to have you notice that text. "Christ brought life and immortality to light through the gospel." Two things: He not only brought immortality to light, that is the gift of God to the church, but He also brought life to light' everlasting life to those who will not have immortality. The immortality class is the little flock, the joint heirs who shall be associated with Him as members of His body, those to whom it will be His pleasure to give glory, honor and immortality and joint heirship in the kingdom, but for the world the Lord brought life to them.
I trust nobody is sorry that the Lord has something for others outside the little flock, the elect church. I trust our hearts glow as we think of the fact that, "God so loved the world"' not merely the church, and that He has not only given the church "exceeding great and precious promises, that they might obtain the divine nature," but also that we can see something of blessing to the world in due time.
I am partly in agreement with our brother respecting being begotten of the spirit' not that everybody is to have that blessing, because only "to as many as believed on His name" was the promise given; those who do not hear now do not have this special privilege; whatever happens to them they cannot get the great salvation promised to those who walk in the footsteps of Christ in the present time of trial and difficulty. There is a difference between the begetting and the birth of the spirit. Although only one word is used in the Greek (genao) to signify the two conditions, the preposition' associated with the word indicates whether birth or begetting is referred to; in the former case the preposition signifies "out of," in the latter case it signifies "into."
Only one who is begotten of the spirit can be born of the spirit, just as birth in the natural life follows only upon begetting. The begetting takes place in the present time, upon consecration to the Lord, but the birth of the spirit is not realized until the resurrection, when the work of begetting is fully complete. The Scriptures indicate this very clearly. Our Lord Jesus is declared to be "The first-born from the dead," and we, if we are faithful and become members of His body, in the resurrection we shall reach the glorious condition of birth. "He is the first-born among many brethren"' we are the brethren, and we shall be like Him, and see Him as He is and share His glory, and possess the divine nature if obedient to the end. This divine nature shall be ours in the future' thestatement of Peter is that we were begotten by these great and precious promises. that we might become partakers of the divine nature in the resurrection' those having part in the first resurrection shall have the divine nature. Glory, honor and immortality shall be for them.
The provision for mankind is different; it is that stated by the apostle in Acts 3:19-21, restitution' a time of restoration, the restoring again of the lost condition in the garden of Eden. This time of restitution shall come when the last member of the kingdom class shall have been glorified, and completed for the work of service in glory. All the holy prophets declare that this restitution shall take place, according to Peter's words' not universal salvation, but a universal opportunity to come to the knowledge of the only name given whereby we may be saved. (Loud applause)
Dr Eaton then arose and said in reply: My brother has berated me because I stated that immortality was not mentioned in the Old Testament. Of course, it is not found there in so many words; but it is all true of the Old Testament. What was the matter with David when he said, "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me." It is all a play upon words. He says all go to hell, which [HG133] shows he is careless; he just slides from one side to the other. Hell means nothing, sheol means nothing, hades nothing, paradise means nothing' they all mean forgetfulness, and sleep, and death. That's where you are, and that's where he is.
The old Hebrews who translated the Septuagint didn't treat the words that way; they didn't think death and hell and sleep mean the same thing. They were exceedingly careful to translate sheol 61 times out of 65 hades. Homer spoke of hades, and at that time the idea was fixed and settled; the Greeks had the idea very clearly, hades divided into two compartments, only they thought of them as eternal. Our Lord adopted their idea, except that He did not make it eternal. The New Testament uses these ideas, and you must treat them respectfully. They are words which the Holy Ghost selected. (Applause) "If God spared not the angels which sinned, and cast them down to Tartarus, and committed them to pits of darkness, and reserved them unto judgment, and spared not the ancient world" – Jesus said: "Depart from Me, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels." These two texts together indicate the fact that wicked men are identified with the fallen angels in their association together.
"The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of trial, and to keep the unjust under punishment unto the day of judgment"' thatis the revised version, American revision, the best scholarship in the world. The word "punishment" here is "kolasin," and refers to the same condition as experienced by the rich man in hades.
"God only hath immortality"' a Scriptural expression. God is the only being who hath immortality as a necessary endowment' a necessary thing is a thing that cannot be. God's immortality is a necessity. He can confer it upon the race and individuals, but we have not got it as God has it. There is nothing in the Bible about seeking for immortality. The word is "aphthasia," and signifies purity. Read the revised version, and you will get some light. "Brought life and immortality to light." The word "life" is "zoa," and "immortality" is "aphtharsia," purity. Jesus Christ brought life and incorruption to light in the gospel. That is the great doctrine of the gospel, soul purity, and the doctrine of eternal life.
My brother spoke of eternal life as though he did not understand the idea, and I do not think he does. He hasn't the least conception of what eternal life is. "This is eternal life, to know God, and Jesus Christ, whom He has sent"' notto know about Him, but to know Him as He is. As the Father hath life (zoa aionios) in Himself (the same as immortality, an original endowment), so hath He given to the Son to have eternal life in Himself." "I am come that they might have life"' zoa, not immortality. Nobody gets immortality as a conditional gift, but by faith in Jesus Christ as a conditional gift eternal life is bestowed. "The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life"' it is the greatest thing in the universe.
I didn't expect my brother to go into some of these matters tonight. I had hoped I had converted him the last night, but he is as bad as he was then! (Applause)
Pastor Russell concluded the debate for the evening as follows: I must remind my brother that David being a prophet spoke beforehand of Christ, and that is particularly why you and I have particular reverence for the psalms, for they are prophetic. David was not always speaking of himself. He and the prophets wrote as Peter tells us, "as they were moved by the holy spirit," not clearly understanding all they did declare.
Our brother has referred to the devil and the angels. We will come to that in the last discourse. It will be all right when we come to it. They don't go to Tartarus then either. The fallen angels only remain there until that time, "reserved in chains of darkness until the judgment Of the great day."
Our brother has referred to "kolasin" as signifying torment. If he will consult his Greek lexicon more closely he will find that it means restraint. (Applause) The Greeks used the expression, for instance, in the phrase, "The charioteer restrains his fiery steeds."
He must not know that there is such a thing as immortality in the Scriptures. He will find that the words "corruption" and "immortality" are used almost interchangeably in the Scriptures. The two words are used in the fifteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians, when the apostle describes the change that shall come to the church: "This mortal shall put on immortality, and this corruption shall put on corruption." The two words are here used.
"This is eternal life that they should know God, and Jesus Christ whom He has sent." Did our Lord really mean that there is nothing more in eternal life than in knowing God' that there is no real eternal life? Certainly not. He wants that any one wanting to attain to eternal life could not hope for it unless he should come into such thorough harmony with God and complete knowledge of His character that he would be able to please the Lord in his daily conduct. The wicked can never have eternal life; that is the reason why they could never go to eternal torment! (Applause) "He that hath the Son hath life; he that hath [HG134] not the Son shall not see life." That is what the wicked get. I am glad for them!
(Applause) Our dear brother has spoken about zoa aionios. The word zoa is a very simple word, used every day; it simply signifies life in the commonest sense of the word.
We have it incorporated into our language in the word "zoology." Lasting life, zoa aionios, is promised to those who obey the Lord, and only those will get it who after learning of the work of Jesus Christ submit themselves willingly to His government.
I trust we will not permit these matters to draw our attention away from the great fact that you and I today are living in the present time by the grace of God with a wonderful opportunity and hope for salvation before us; it is the salvation which belongs to this age.
God is now taking out the little flock to be joint heirs of the kingdom. But you and I would not be ready for that great work of blessing the world unless we had formed characters in the meantime, and God has provided trials 'to test His .people that they may be ready for the administration of the blessing to the world as the seed of Abraham, of which the apostle says, Gal. 3:29, "If ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." There is a great promise that God gave to Abraham, saying, "In thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed."
That great promise has never been fulfilled. Gross darkness covers the earth and the people, but a light shall shine, the great sun of righteousness shall arise, and if you and I are to be members of that light, which shall shine forth as the sun to heal the world and lift up all the willing, and rule as the great Prophet, and Governor and as the great King, then we need now to make our calling and election sure, attending to these things which the Lord hath set before His people.