The Millennial Dawn Heresy: An Examination of Pastor Charles T. Russell's Teaching (1911)
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LIBRARY OF PRINCETON
NOV 6 1911
THE CLOGICAL SEMINARY.
BX 8526 .E3 Eaton, E. L. b. 1846. The millennial dawn heresy
במקרה זה
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2014
The Millennial Dawn Heresy
AN EXAMINATION
Of Pastor Charles T. Russell's Teaching Concerning the Purpose of the Second Advent and the Millennium, as set forth in His Published Books and Papers—"The Divine Plan of the Ages," and Others of Similar Import.
By E. L. EATON, D. D.
LIBRARY OF PRINCETON
NOV 6 1911
THE CLOGICAL SEMINARY.
Cincinnati:
JENNINGS AND GRAHAM
New York:
EATON AND MAINS COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY JENNINGS AND GRAHAM.
FOREWORD
While Pastor of the North Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church, Allegheny City, now Pittsburgh, I had a chance to study Russellism at close range, for that city was at that time the home of Pastor Charles T. Russell. He frequently assumed what seemed to me a belligerent attitude, and declared that orthodox ministers dare not meet the issues which he championed. Believing his whole system erroneous, and that it ought to be exposed, especially for those to whom it most strongly appealed—persons the least able to discover its errors—I proposed to him that we publicly debate those views which he was putting forth in opposition to the current theological opinions. Six debates were accordingly arranged, and these took place in Carnegie Music Hall, Allegheny City, in the Autumn of 1903.
These debates were printed in the city papers, the Pittsburgh Gazette containing the fullest reports of them. At the close these were gathered into one number of that paper of which a very large edition was printed and extensively circulated. I felt from the beginning that these reports—taken at the time by Mr. Russell's stenographer, I having no chance to edit my part of the debate—did not fairly represent my side of the issue.
Since that time a large number of communications have reached me from different parts of the world, asking for literature upon the Millennial Dawn heresies; it is therefore a pleasure that I am permitted, under the auspices of the publishing interests of my own Church, to give to the public an ungarbled account of my reply to the false doctrines and extravagant inventions published by the "Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society," somewhat more vaguely known as "Millennial Dawn."
E. L. EATON.
Evanston, Ill., April, 1911.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. PRINCIPLES OF BIBLICAL INTERPRETATIONS 3
II. IMMORTALITY AND SOUL-SLEEPING 25
III. THIS PRESENT GOSPEL AGE 65
IV. THE MILLENNIUM 91
V. PROBATION AFTER DEATH 127
I INTERPRETATION "Take heed that no man deceive you."—Matt. 24:4.
"Declare unto us the parable of the tares."—Matt. 13:36.
“Prophesy according to the analogy of faith.”
—Rom. 12:6.
"No prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation."—2 Peter 1:20.
CHAPTER I
PRINCIPLES OF INTERPRETATION
MILLENNIAL DAWN IS FOUNDED UPON FALSE AND UNSCRIPTURAL METHODS OF BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION
OPEN infidelity is not making much headway. It is not long since it directed its assaults upon the Bible and denied its divine authority. That was Robert Ingersoll's method. But it is not doing that now to any great extent. To-day it often admits the Bible to be the Word of God, and then proceeds to evolve doctrinal variations by false systems of interpretation, like Mormonism, Eddyism, and Millennial Dawnism. These are the present-day tactics of those who would discredit the work of the Church; and the effect of their work is to plunge honest but unskilled people either into hopeless infidelity, or to bury them in religious organizations that are meaningless and pitiable.
This is both the method and the fruit of the Millennial Dawn Heresy. We can render no better service to those honest folk who are seeking after the truth than to expose these false, and what we believe to be vicious, methods of Scriptural interpretation.
That we shall undertake to do in this chapter.
Millennial Dawn adopts a high-sounding name and makes much pretense of being Christian; but it is fraught with great harm in many ways. While we do not charge it with being a direct and outspoken system of infidelity, yet we do say that its tendency is to disturb the regular work of the Church in every community where it can get a foothold; to unsettle multitudes of wellmeaning people and to withdraw them from spheres of active usefulness and contentment; to land other multitudes into infidelity; and to create in all its votaries a feeling that there is little need of earnest effort to escape the consequences of sin, since the opportunity to secure salvation is postponed to the coming age.
It is one of the fundamental principles of Protestantism that every man is free to read and interpret the Bible for himself; but it is a serious matter for one to assume to interpret it for others. For the Bible is a difficult book to interpret; and this because it is a very ancient book, a book filled with Oriental imagery and poetic fancies, a book that comes to us in foreign tongues, and above all—a spiritual book. It deals with things that do not lie level to the human mind. Therefore it must be safeguarded with special and necessary laws of interpretation.
No one has a right to invent canons of Biblical interpretation. Nor can any one interpret it INTERPRETATION
correctly who does not faithfully follow those principles which are plainly laid down in the Bible itself, or are the necessary dicta of common sense. We shall endeavor to show in this chapter that Millennial Dawn violates both common sense and the Word of God by its false method of interpretation.
Let us now carefully consider certain laws of interpretation which must be reverently followed by all people who desire to arrive at the truth. And the first law is—
INTERPRET LITERALLY
This is the demand of common sense. Read the Bible just as you read any other book, and understand it accordingly. While this can not always be done, it is nevertheless the first law of interpretation. It must be observed and invoked to protect the Bible from vagaries, extravagancies, and fanciful interpretations. The author of Millennial Dawn tells us that "in a parable the thing said is never the thing that is meant," and uses this half truth in the nature of a license to make the parables mean anything under the sun to help out its system. Thus by disregarding this wholesome and necessary principle of common sense—to interpret literally whenever a fair construction requires it—he has used certain portions of the Scriptures to the support of a system which is made to stand out in open antagonism to practically every New Testament doctrine.
Where the language is literal the interpretation must generally be literal. Where "the thing said" is literal, "the thing meant" must be as apparent as a literal statement, or the parable utterly fails to accomplish the thing intended. It violates the spirit and purpose of a parable to give it strained, far-fetched, and inobvious interpretations. Take the parable of the Good Samaritan. It means exactly what it says, and can have no other meaning; and its spiritual application is so obvious that it needs no explanation. The Good Samaritan did what he did because he had a kind and neighborly spirit; and it is precisely that which our Lord sought to illustrate and enforce by this great parable.
In like manner the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus. It means exactly what it says. It gives us the history of two men in this world, one a saint, the other a sinner. Then in the most direct and literal way it shows us the results in the life to come of the life which each lived here. And that is the chief purpose for which this remarkable story was told. To obscure or deflect its plain purport to some far-fetched and foreign object is to juggle with the Word of God.
But a vast portion of the Word of God can not be interpreted literally because the text itself is not literal. And that fact brings us to the second law of Biblical interpretation, which is— INTERPRETATION
INTERPRET THE FIGURATIVE BY THE LITERAL
The Bible is an Oriental book. The divine and the human elements are both there, but the human element is Oriental. That makes it a poetical book, abounding in figures of speech, a pictorial book, often gorgeous with Oriental imagery. And to interpret the portions that are manifestly figurative and pictorial as though they were intended for literal statements would be absurd. So, in order to get exactly what the Spirit intended to reveal, it is necessary to find the law of interpretation which applies to figurative and pictorial writing. We shall not have to search far nor in vain. We have but to inquire, What was the method of the sacred writers themselves?
The first noted Biblical interpreter was Joseph. He was called upon to interpret the dreams of the king of Egypt. In his dream (Gen. 41) the king saw seven fat kine come out of the river; he also saw seven lean kine. He saw seven full ears of corn; also seven thin ears of corn. These dreams were pictorial, figurative; what did they mean? Asking wisdom from God, Joseph tells the king what the dreams mean. The seven fat kine (figure) mean seven years of plenty (literal). The seven lean kine (figure) mean seven years of famine (literal). And so with the seven full and the seven thin ears of corn. Here we discover the divine law of interpretation. It is also the method of common sense.
No other way could possibly be pursued if one is seeking truth.
The next great Biblical interpreter was Daniel. In a similar way he interpreted king Nebuchadnezzar's dream of the metallic image with its golden head, silver breast and arms, brass belly and thighs, and iron legs. The image was a figure, a picture; what did it mean? Daniel tells him: "Thou, O king, art this head of gold." That is, the head of gold (figure) means the king of Babylon, or the kingdom over which he reigns (literal). Here precisely the same method is employed by Daniel that was observed by Joseph, which is, to interpret the figurative by the literal.
Observe the method followed by our Lord in interpreting His parables. Of the fifty parables which He gave, His disciples asked Him to interpret two—the Parable of the Sower, and that of the Wheat and the Tares; and in both instances He interpreted these figurative stories by literal statements. The latter parable (Matt. 13:24-30) He interpreted as follows (v. 36-43): "The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the tares are the children of the wicked one," etc. This is sufficient to show His method.
In his great pentecostal sermon (Acts 2:16 and onward) Peter quotes a most graphic prophecy of Joel, a passage abounding in flaming and lurid symbolisms, including dreams, visions, wonders in heaven, vapor, smoke, sun darkened, moon turned INTERPRETATION
to blood, etc. But in his interpretation of this famous passage he employs nothing but plain, literal statements, not indulging in a single figure. This which you see is that which the prophet wrote, is the amount of his solemn and literal affirmation.
Paul pursued the same course, always interpreting the figurative by the literal. Notice an instance in Rom. 14:10-12, where, after quoting a poetical passage from Isaiah 45:23, about every knee bowing and every tongue confessing to God, he explains it as meaning that we shall all stand before the judgment seat at last to be judged. Many similar instances could be found in Paul's writings, showing that it was his invariable method of interpreting Scripture to use plain and literal statements to explain figurative passages.
And practically the whole book of Hebrews is devoted to a similar purpose—explaining the Hebrew system with its types and shadows, its ordinances and ceremonies, its flaming ritual and lofty symbolisms—all by simple, plain, and literal speech. No sacred writer or speaker, in any single instance, ever departed from this divinely established rule of interpretation.
One of the chief errors for which Millennial Dawn will have to answer is the flagrant violation of this simple and necessary law. It founds its whole structure upon the affirmation that there is to be a Millennium—a personal reign of Jesus Christ upon this earth for a period of one thousand years, to begin at the time of the Second Advent.
Now, where does Millennial Dawn get Scripture authority for that teaching? Is it the twentieth chapter of Revelation? It is found nowhere else in the Bible; and we shall show in chapter fourth of this book that it is not even in Revelation. But the thing which we wish to show just now is that in probably the most figurative and pictorial book in all the Bible, and in one of the most dramatic chapters of that book, Millennial Dawn finds a passage (Rev. 20:1-11) which speaks of a certain special class of saints "living and reigning with Christ a thousand years." And this high-wrought and figurative book and chapter are made to interpret all the plain, literal statements in the Bible, instead of using these plain and literal statements to interpret this chapter. By this unfair and unscriptural method every fragment of the Word of God is tortured into submission to this one chapter! The divine method is reversed and dishonored, and everywhere and always the plain and literal portions of the Scripture are interpreted by the figurative. That is Millennial Dawnism. By reversing the divine law of interpretation, Millennial Dawn has managed to build up a most false, extravagant, and fantastic system of doctrines, and is industriously trying to foist them upon the world as a substitute for the well-nigh universally accepted truths of Christianity. Putting one man's opinion over against millions of scholarly and godly men, and then founding that INTERPRETATION
opinion upon a false and crude principle of interpretation—such is the propaganda that is now undertaken to enlighten the world under the name of Millennial Dawn!
A third important canon of interpretation, laid down in the Scriptures as a divine law, is this—
INTERPRET BY THE ANALOGY OF FAITH
This law of Biblical interpretation is stated by Paul (Rom. 12:6) in these words: "Let him that prophesies phophesy according to the analogy of faith." To prophesy in the Old Testament sense is generally to foretell events. To prophesy in the New Testament sense is to teach or to preach. And Paul's dictum therefore means that we must prophesy or teach always in harmony with the analogy of faith. The analogy of faith means the general drift or teaching of Scripture upon any subject. And in order faithfully to apply Paul's principle we must never allow one or two or even three texts of Scripture to stand out against the general testimony or teaching of the Word of God upon the subject under consideration. One, or even few, texts can not be allowed to control the meaning of many. The analogy of faith is the final standard of appeal in all such instances. Peter affirms the same doctrine when he says (2 Pet. 1:20), "No prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation," ("special interpretation," say the Rev. Ver. and Am. Rev.). This is precisely the doctrine of Paul, and places clearly before us the divine law which affirms that we must always interpret according to the analogy of faith.
Notice the application of this law in the 24th chapter of Joshua. Joshua said, "As for me and my house we will serve the Lord;" to which the people made answer, "We also will serve the Lord;" then Joshua answered, "Ye can not serve the Lord, for He is a holy God, He is a jealous God. He will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins." Is that true in any literal sense? Did Joshua tell Israel the truth when he said that they could not serve Jehovah because He is a holy God? No, it is not true; and for one to take that text and disconnect it from its setting, and then insist that the Bible teaches that men can not serve God because He is a holy God, would violate the analogy of faith and destroy the meaning of the entire Bible. Yet exactly that it is to refuse to observe the principle here discussed as a divine law of interpretation—namely, to interpret according to the analogy of faith. The uniform teaching of the Scripture is that man, though sinful, can worship a holy God upon one condition—that he turn away from sin. And exactly that is what Joshua meant, though he did not incorporate the full statement of it in this verse.
Millennial Dawn violates this divine law in the most flagrant manner, as we will point out in chapter three and elsewhere. It finds here and there a single passage of Scripture, takes it out INTERPRETATION
of its natural setting, disjoints it from the context, wrests and tortures it out of all recognition, and by that means manages to make a show of Scriptural support for its doctrinal fictions and vagaries. What should be thought of one who refuses to obey this divine injunction twice laid down in the New Testament, and continues to disregard the analogy of faith in his interpretation? Is not that a dangerous method of treating the Sacred Scriptures? And is one who does that fit to be a teacher of men in moral and spiritual matters? Is it safe to follow such a teacher of doctrines? If it can be shown that Millennial Dawn errs grievously in this matter, would not that fact forfeit its right to pose as the leader of men in religious matters?
Another and very important principle of interpretation recognized by fair-minded and scholarly men everywhere—is this:
CONSIDER THE VIEWPOINT OF THE WRITER
There are thirty-six or more writers whose work is included in the volume called the Holy Bible. These men were widely separated both in time and place. The earlier writers generally saw truth more dimly and stated it more vaguely than did the later writers. The revelation is progressive. The vision grows clearer as the ages advance. In order to get the full meaning of their message we must consider these persons—their time, their place, their aim, their knowledge, and their limitations.
Not one of them told all the truth. Each one makes a fragmentary contribution to the whole. No one is under obligation to tell all the truth. Even Jesus did not tell all the truth. No one ever agrees to do that except witnesses in a court of law, and their signal failure to keep their pledge is one of the grim humors of the world.
If we consider the Gospel writers, we shall see that they wrote from different standpoints, for different peoples, and for different purposes. How utterly divergent are the conceptions of Matthew, Peter, and James on the one hand, and of John and Paul on the other, as to the real character of Christ's doctrine and kingdom. To the first group the Church is a Jewish institution, and Christianity a reformed Judaism; to Paul and John it is not a Judaism at all, but a new thing under the sun. To Matthew and Peter it is a sort of a millennial kingdom, such as the Jews had long been looking for; that it was soon to be enthroned in this world, with its capital at Jerusalem, and with Christ upon its throne. To Paul and John it is not in any sense an earthly kingdom, but a spiritual one, having its throne in the hearts of those who love God.
Thus we have the two concepts of the kingdom. Is Christianity a reformed Judaism, or is it a new kingdom altogether? Is Christ to be enthroned in Jerusalem, or is He now enthroned in the hearts INTERPRETATION
of those who love Him? If one rejects Paul and John's interpretation of the kingdom, and insists that it is but a reformed Judaism, he will be a Jewish Christian. He will very naturally fall in with Millennium, soul-sleeping, Saturday-keeping, immediate-second-coming, and world-going-to-smash theories and doctrines; but if he takes the view of Christianity that forbids regarding it as a Judaism in any sense but a spiritual system of truth and doctrine that proposes to enthrone Jesus Christ in love in every human heart, then his teaching will be something altogether different. He will believe that Christ is now enthroned in the hearts of those who love Him, and that is the only way in which He desires to reign anywhere.
Take the book of Matthew. It was written as an appeal to the Jews—to set before them the Messianic claim, and to show how Jesus fulfilled those expectations; to present the gospel to the Jewish people in such a way that they would see that our Lord's person and history fulfilled the prophecies of the Messiah. It is an inspired book, and gloriously did it fulfill its purpose and accomplish its mission. But it is not sufficient for the Gentile world. It was not primarily intended for them; and if we had no other Gospel but that of Matthew we would all be Jewish Christians, thinking of Christianity as a renovated Judaism. Matthew gives us thirty parables, and practically all of them are about the kingdom, and are introduced with the formula, "The kingdom of heaven is like," etc. He is the only Bible writer who uses the term, "kingdom of heaven;" all the rest say "kingdom of God."
Surely those Jewish Christians had quite a different concept of the kingdom than is generally held by broad-minded Christians of the later ages. Matthew thinks of Jesus as a King; His capital is Jerusalem; His judgment seat is a throne; and the paraphernalia of a royal system is implied.
When we come to Paul and John, the kingdom has well-nigh vanished. Doctrines, experiences, and personal character are pressed to the fore. Not so much prophecies of the coming kingdom as the indwelling of the living King. Where in Matthew, Mark, or Luke do we find the doctrine of the Divine Sonship as we find it in Paul and John? Or the doctrine of eternal life? Or the doctrine of sin? Or pardon by an atonement? Or justification by faith? Or regeneration? Or the witness of the Spirit? Or of adoption? Or of sanctification? Or the resurrection? Or glorification? All of these doctrines are found in Paul and John; but only dimly foreshadowed in the Synoptic Gospels. Christianity is not law, but life; not an organization nor an institution, either ecclesiastical or national, but doctrinal truth and heavenly light in the souls of men. And since the days of the apostles Christianity has generally been interpreted from the doctrinal and spiritual standpoint of Paul and John. To reverse that order is to turn back to Judaism. For one now to INTERPRETATION
try to foist any system of Judaism or Millennialism upon the enlightened Church is about as stupid as to array the book of Ecclesiastes against the doctrine of regeneration or the natural immortality of the soul as stated in the New Testament. Yet practically that those people do who forever ignore John and Paul as the highest exponents of the system Jesus taught.
When we come to Luke's Gospel the scene shifts again. Here is a gospel writer who is about as oblivious to the kingdom, at least to any Messianic kingdom, as is John. Institutions do not appeal to him. Organizations have no charm for him. Nations and kingdoms are not in his thought, but individuals, persons, character—that is his message. We have thirty-six parables in Luke, and almost none of them have any reference to the kingdom. They are not introduced with the formula which Matthew employs. They are character studies, every one of them. This can not be said of any of Matthew's parables, nor those of Mark, generally. But every person, story, or parable in Luke is a character study. And in his plan all this conspires to reach its climax in Jesus, the perfect man—man at high-water mark! It is both stupid and impertinent to attach to Luke's parables, national, institutional, or kingdom meanings, when they were selected from the Master's lips to delineate character, and are never employed for any other purpose. Yet Millennial Dawn has committed that savage surgery upon one of the remarkable stories in Luke's Gospel—the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus.
Oblivious to the awful moral import of these two men's personal history and character, it has torn them from their natural place and meaning and compelled them to stand as representatives of nations! And all that in Luke! One capable of that has no conception of the purpose for which Luke wrote.
Which are the most well-known and popular of all the parables and stories of the New Testament? Nearly every one would answer, The Good Samaritan, The Prodigal Son, The Rich Man and Lazarus, The Importunate Widow. Why are these parables and stories universally popular? Because they delineate persons and character. Why are they all in Luke and nowhere else? For exactly the same reason. Yet Millennial Dawn would filch these great studies in character from us and compel them to do treadmill duty in support of its manufactured institution which it calls Millennium. We resent it and characterize the performance as ecclesiastical jugglery.
We have endeavored to draw attention in this chapter to some of those fundamental principles of Biblical interpretation which have been recognized by sound scholarship the world over. Whoever is ignorant of them disregards them, or proceeds to interpret the Word of God in flagrant defiance of them, can never arrive at the truth. His system will be man-made, grotesque, anti-Christian; and he will generally proceed to do what the INTERPRETATION
Mormons, the Roman Catholics, and the author of Millennial Dawn have done—set up the claim of inspiration or of special divine illumination from whose dicta there is no appeal. By such means an ingenious man can manufacture almost any kind of a system.
PLUNDERING BIBLE PROPHECIES
We have noticed the tendency of all Millennialists to plunder the Bible, and especially the prophecies of the spread and triumph of the gospel, and the reign of the Messiah. They appropriate these to their Millennium. We protest against such treatment of the Holy Book. A noted Millennialist of New York claims all the glowing descriptions of Messiah's kingdom and reign as having reference only to the Millennium. What an outrage to take a scoop and shovel fifty-one chapters of Old Testament phophecy over into the Millennium, and to deny that they have any application to the present Gospel Age!
That is certainly bad enough, but it is petty larceny compared with the performance of Millennial Dawn. This institution has taken practically the entire Bible as having been written only for its pet hobby. It begins with Adam, and insists that about everything that has been said or done since is a part of the great scheme of the Almighty to get the entire human family over into the Millennium. Nothing else is worth thinking about or striving for.
The Millennium monopolizes every page of the Bible, every event of history, every prophecy of Scripture, every thought of the race. All the radiant prophecies of the Bible can be fulfilled only in the Millennium. Prophetic utterances about the glory of the Church, the destruction of national vices, and the reign of righteousness can come to fruition only in the Millennium. We characterize such views as unscriptural, uncritical, and untrue. Thus to wrest the Bible from its true meaning abuses and dishonors the Word of God.
Matthew quoted the Old Testament sixty-five times to prove to the Jews that Jesus was the long-promised Messiah. Paul frequently quoted from the prophecies for a similar purpose, as well as to show that while preaching the kingdom of God to the people of his day he was fulfilling those very prophecies. This was especially true in all his sermons to Jewish audiences. Paul evidently believed that the utterances of the Hebrew prophets were intended to apply to this Gospel Age, and not to some future Millennium. The gospel of the kingdom began to be preached at Pentecost by the Apostles; and from that forward they constantly quote the utterances of the Prophets as descriptive of their age and work. Besides scores of allusions to these prophetic utterances, we have carefully noted sixty of these quotations, beginning with that taken by Peter from Joel as his Pentecostal text.
These prophecies, so understood by the inspired INTERPRETATION
Apostles, make it certain that they apply to this Gospel Age, and have no reference to any supposed Millennial Age to succeed this. That was clearly their understanding; and we resent the constant iteration that these prophecies were intended for the Millennium and can be fulfilled only in that age. Thus to divert them from their real meaning is utterly to violate every true principle of interpretation.
II IMMORTALITY AND SOUL- SLEEPING " O listen, man!
A voice within us speaks the startling word— 'Man, thou shalt never die!' celestial voices Hymn it round our souls; according harps By angel fingers touched when the mild stars Of morning sang together, sound forth still The song of our great immortality.
Thick-clustering orbs, and this our fair domain. The tall, dark mountains and the deep-toned seas All join in the solemn, universal song."
—Dana.
CHAPTER II
IMMORTALITY AND SOUL-SLEEPING
MILLENNIAL DAWN PRACTICALLY DENIES THE EXISTENCE OF THE HUMAN SOUL AS AN ORGANISM DISTINCT FROM THE BODY; UTTERLY DENIES ITS IMMORTALITY, AND PROPAGATES THAT OLD HERESY OF SOUL-SLEEPING
THE teachings of Millennial Dawn concerning the existence of the human soul, its creation and immortality, are at variance with the opinions which mankind have generally held, contrary to human reason, and out of harmony with the Word of God. This reference to human reason will arouse the wrath of Millennial Dawn, because it does not believe in any man's reason except its own. It repudiates all others. The Scriptural account is that God formed man's material, animal body of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul (Gen. 2:7). The human person is therefore composed of two distinct and separate entities, a body and a soul. His body identifies him with the animal kingdom; his soul places him in another kingdom and makes him a being of a higher order than the animals.
If we examine the account carefully we shall see that man is differentiated from the animals in several important particulars:
1—God formed man of the dust of the ground. We are not told that any animal was so formed. This is man's first distinction.
2—God breathed into man's nostrils. No animal received either its breath or its life in that way. This is distinction number two.
3—The thing breathed into man's nostrils is called the "breath of life." Here the Hebrew always makes a distinction between men and animals. The term—breath of life—is frequently applied to animals in the early Hebrew Scriptures; but whenever animals are said to have the breath of life the Hebrew term is always ruach-hayim, literally, the wind of life. Whenever man is said to have the breath of life it is always nishmath-hayim, literally, the breath of life. There is no exception to this. Both men and animals have "the breath of life," but it is not by any means the same breath of life. This is a distinction which is sacredly guarded by the Hebrew Scriptures, but utterly obscured in our English version, which always translates the two expressions as though they were the same. No wonder innocent but unskilled people are ignorant of the facts, and become the easy prey of designing bunglers. It will be our pleasure to point out many similar instances where either the ignorance or the design of Millennial Dawn touching the real meaning of texts is capitalized to support that system of error.
4—“Man became a living soul.” This is equivalent to saying that man became an immortal soul. The term immortal soul, or immortality of the soul, is not used in the Sacred Scripture; the favorite term being a “living soul.” Plato’s opinion was that the soul, being a single substance and not a compound, could not be destroyed, and that, therefore, it is necessarily immortal. That opinion from one of the greatest genius-inspired men which the world has seen has no doubt influenced theologians all too much. We are under no obligation to adopt an error because it is old, nor because it emanates from a man of superior genius. We do not say that the soul is necessarily immortal, but that it is naturally immortal—made to be “a living soul,” and that it will live always unless assailed by some destructive agent outside of itself. When we say that the soul is naturally immortal we mean exactly what those words imply—a soul whose nature it is to live; that there is no self-limiting device upon or within the soul, no time-limit upon it as there is upon or within the body, which will die naturally within a definite period of time. The soul will never die naturally, but will live always unless it shall please God, for sufficient reason, to strike it from the muster-roll of the universe. This is what the Scriptures seem to mean by the oft-repeated term "a living soul."
This view of immortality is both Scriptural and reasonable.
5—The next item is that the soul was created in the "likeness and image of God." (Gen. 1:26). Does not this mean that the soul is an entity, an organism, just as surely as the body is? and that its organs or faculties are like God's? It is not the same as God, nor in His nature, but like Him. It is the regenerated soul that partakes of the Divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4). The Hebrew Scriptures speak of the divine soul fourteen times, using the same word that stands for the human soul one hundred and nine times. This furnishes the basis of the divine likeness. In what respect is the soul like God? It is not difficult to see. Practically all eminent students of the soul agree at this point.
The human soul is like the divine soul in that it has power to think. That which thinks we call intellect. Man's intellect is like God's—a finite copy after the infinite Original. A being without intellect could never be a companion of God.
The second respect in which man is like God is that he is capable of feeling—pleasure, pain, joy, sorrow, and the like. That organ or faculty of the soul which feels we call heart or sensibility, whether it be divine or human. In the possession of this faculty also man is like God.
The third respect in which man is like God is that he has power to choose, to act, to perform, and thus to bring things to pass.
In this the human soul is like God, whose power of choice and action is infinite. This power we call will. Thus man is like God in that he has powers of thought, feeling, and action which are similar to those powers in the Divine Being. This view of "the likeness and image of God" is basic and constitutional in the construction of the soul itself.
No being in the universe, not even God, so far as our present knowledge extends, has any power outside of or beyond the power of thought, feeling, and action. In this respect both men and angels are like God. There is strong probability that all intelligent beings in the universe were so created intellect, sensibility, will—for thus only could they be capable of divine companionship. And did not God make them to be companions for Himself?
The divine likeness in man has been weakened by sin, but it has never been lost. Nearly two thousand years after sin entered into the world, God said to Noah, "Whoso sheddeth man's blood by man shall his blood be shed, because in the likeness of God created He him," (Gen. 9:6). And four thousand years after sin came, James says, "With the tongue we bless God and curse man, who was made in the likeness of God," (Ja. 3:9).
Paul tells the Corinthians that a man ought not to cover his head, for he is the "image and glory of God;” and these texts ought to settle it once for all that man has not lost the divine image by sin, though he has lost his original innocence.
The divine likeness therefore does not consist of any quality or mental state or moral condition, but of faculties and organs that are copied after God.
Paul tells Timothy that "only God hath immortality." If that statement be taken without modification, then no being, not even angels, are immortal, which is absurd. The text without modification proves too much. So if we would interpret his statement in harmony with the "analogy of faith," we should be obliged to say that Paul must have meant that God is the only being in the universe who possesses immortality as an original, eternal, and necessary endowment. No other being has it in any one of these senses. His immortality is eternal, ours had a beginning. His is original, ours is conferred. His is necessary, ours is contingent upon the divine will. Is not this a sane view of immortality? And is it not the view that the Bible holds? In this sense, and this only, we claim to be immortal.
Millennial Dawn is not the first cult that has sought to degrade and belittle man, by making him in every essential respect a beast; his soul breath, his spirit wind, the divine likeness, a mental state or a moral condition; instead of life and hope and joy, a tomb; instead of millenniums of happiness in Paradise, ages of rot in a grave.
This truer doctrine of immortality comports well with the dignity and glory that God associates with the creation of man. The psalmist declares, "When I consider Thy heavens the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars which Thou hast ordained, what must man be that Thou are mindful of him, and the Son of man that Thou visitest him? For Thou hast made him but a little lower than God, and hast crowned him with glory and honor. Thou madest him to have dominion over the work of Thy hands; Thou hast put all things under his feet." Soul-sleepers would rob man of this high station and reduce him to the level of the brute; and if it had not been positively settled that man was created in the divine likeness and given dominion over the earth, we may be sure that Millennial Dawn would have denied him any distinction of that nature until it had gotten its millennium into working order. But when the psalmist says, "Thou hast put all things under his feet," it is evident that he was not telling us what was going to happen in some far-off millennium, but what is true here and now in this present world and time. With this magnificent Scripture descriptive of man before us, can any fair-minded person still believe that man is in no respect different from the brutes that perish and rot in the grave? There are those who, for the sake of some doctrinal hobby, can go to that extreme, but most candid and intelligent people repudiate such low and coarse materialism.
THE MILLENNIAL DAWN HERESY
SCRIPTURE EVIDENCE OF IMMORTALITY
There is nothing which Millennial Dawn so much delights in—unless it is its furious and heroic assaults upon those old and discredited falsehoods of foreordination and eternal torments—as this gruesome doctrine of soul-sleeping in the grave. It seems to be almost delirious with joy at the thought of the souls of the early saints, like Abel and Enoch, rotting in their graves for five thousand years! And that senseless stuff is the doom of us all! And how does it make out such an absurdity? Easy enough. Just make sheol in the Old Testament and hades in the New always mean the grave or oblivion, and you have it! Volume V of the Millennial Dawn series at page 354 and onward for nearly thirty pages reiterates over and over that sheol and hades mean grave or oblivion. And this absurdity is so deep-rooted in the entire scheme of Millennial Dawn that we shall be obliged to devote considerable space to the exposure of the error.
WHAT DOES SHEOL MEAN?
1—Sheol in the Hebrew Bible.—Gesenius' Hebrew Lexicon devotes two hundred and fifty words to the definition of sheol as the under world, the place where go departed spirits at death, etc., but never once mentions either the grave or oblivion in connection with it. And that is practically the testimony of all Hebrew lexicographers. Any person who takes the trouble to examine the Hebrew lexicons of Gesenius, Moore, Fuerst, Parkhurst, Brown, Driver, Briggs, will find that they are all in perfect harmony in their affirmations that sheol means the place of departed spirits; not the grave, not oblivion, not a state primarily, but a place where all mankind go at death.
We know of no Bible dictionary, cyclopedia, or lexical authority that bears any other testimony. Who knows best—the united and godly scholarship of the entire world, or Millennial Dawn? For that is exactly the issue!
Sheol is found sixty-five times in the Hebrew Bible. Its meaning must be found by the use which those ancient Hebrews made of it. It does not mean heaven; the Hebrew word shama-yim, found four hundred and twenty times, is always used in that sense. It does not mean hell, except when qualified by a descriptive term, as we shall show presently. It does not mean pit, the common word for which is bor, while there are ten other words which are used in that sense. Sheol does not mean grave, the Hebrew word for which is qeber, and appears more than fifty times in the Hebrew. Nor does it mean death, though it is once so translated in the Greek version. If it does not mean heaven, hell, grave, pit, death, nor oblivion—what is its true meaning?
If we were to examine all the texts where the word occurs we would find that in many of these the meaning is vague, frequently figurative, and often obscure.
No doubt in the Hebrew mind the exact meaning of the word was not always well defined—perhaps a little less distinct than the common notion of heaven as generally held to-day; but it is certain that the word is found a sufficient number of times where its meaning can not be mistaken. Let us examine some of these.
(1) —Sheol means a place of conscious existence for all mankind, and they enter it immediately after death.
Gen. 37:35, "I will go down to sheol to my son mourning." This is Jacob's way of saying that his sorrow over the supposed death of Joseph would kill him. Did Jacob expect to meet his son in the stomach of a wild beast, or did he expect to meet his soul in sheol? Will Millennial Dawn or any other soul-sleeper please tell us why the ancient Hebrew translators of the Greek version rendered sheol in this place hades instead of mnemeion or taphos, the Greek word for grave and tomb?
Do not the following texts represent sheol as a place of conscious existence for human souls after death?—
Ps. 55:15, "Let them go down alive into sheol." Ps. 9:17, "The wicked shall be turned into sheol and all the nations that forget God."
Ps. 139: 7-10, "Whither shall I go from Thy spirit, or whither shall I flee from Thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven Thou art there; if I make my bed in sheol, behold, Thou art there!''
Ez. 32:21, "The strong among the mighty shall speak to Him out of the midst of sheol."
Prov. 1:12, "Let us swallow them up alive as sheol."
Jonah 2:22, "Out of the belly of sheol cried I unto Thee, and Thou heardest my voice."
Is. 14:9-15, describes the reception which a wicked king received upon his entrance into sheol."
Ps. 49:14, "Like a flock they are laid in the grave." Who ever saw a flock of sheep laid in the grave? No one. The finer figure of the Hebrew poet is: "Like a flock we all are rushing into sheol."
These are sufficient to make it clear that sheol is often used in the Hebrew Scripture to indicate a state of consciousness after death. But these are not the only places where sheol has that meaning, as we shall presently see.
(2) —When sheol is used in a bad sense.—In a broad and somewhat vague way the ancient Hebrews believed that sheol represented a state of happiness for the good and of misery for the bad. This is sufficiently shown by the ever present fact that when sheol is mentioned as the abode of bad men after death, a descriptive term is always used, such as "the lower sheol," "the sides of sheol," "the bottom of sheol," "the depths of sheol," etc. THE MILLENNIAL DAWN HERESY
Thus somewhat vaguely we have the two compartments of sheol as the home of the good and of the bad—sheol and the lower sheol. The texts which follow exhibit that character, and make this proposition plain to any careful reader:
Deut. 32:22, "A fire shall burn to the lowest sheol."
Is. 14:9, "Sheol from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming."
Ps. 86:13, "Thou deliveredst my soul from the lowest sheol."
Prov. 9:18, "Her (the wicked woman's) guests are in the depths of sheol."
Prov. 15:24, "To the wise the way of life goeth upward, that he may depart from sheol beneath."
Whenever sheol is accompanied by a qualifying term, as shown in these texts, it is used in a bad sense, and represents the place and state of wicked men after death. In all such cases it would be proper to translate it hell, providing it be not understood as a place of eternal retribution; for we shall now see that—
(3) —Sheol is a temporal and not an eternal state.—Sheol is an intermediate state. It begins with death and ends with the resurrection, and so far as the human race is concerned it will come to an end with that event. Those dwelling in sheol will not remain there forever, as the following texts clearly indicate: Ps. 16:10, "Thou wilt not leave my soul in sheol, neither wilt Thou suffer Thine Holy One to see corruption."
Ps. 49:15, "But God will redeem my soul from the power of sheol."
1 Sam. 2:6, "The Lord killeth, and maketh alive; He bringeth down to sheol, and bringeth up."
Ps. 30:3, "Thou hast brought up my soul from sheol."
Hosea 13:14, "I will ransom them from the power of sheol; I will redeem them from death. O, death, where are thy plagues? O sheol, where is thy destruction?"
This last text prophesies the end both of death for the body, and of sheol for the spirit, at the resurrection; and in his great chapter on the resurrection Paul paraphrased it in 1 Cor. 15:55.
This examination of sheol as it stands in the Hebrew Bible is sufficient to establish the three propositions made above—That sheol is an intermediate state for all mankind between death and the resurrection; that it is a state of conscious existence; and that when it is used to designate the abode of wicked souls, that character is indicated by a descriptive or qualifying term. But from first to last there is nothing about it that identifies it with the grave, and there is no Biblical authority anywhere which in any way regards it as meaning the grave or oblivion, Millennial Dawn to the contrary notwithstanding.
THE MILLENNIAL DAWN HERESY
THE SEPTUAGINT
2—Sheol in the Greek Version of the Hebrew Bible.—In all the world there is no testimony so valuable as to the meaning of Hebrew words as the Septuagint. Here we have the opinion of ancient Hebrew scholars, nearly three hundred years before Christ, put in such enduring form that no possible change can ever affect it. The translation which these men made of their Bible into the Greek tongue is their enduring and changeless testimony as to what they thought these Hebrew words meant.
Sixty-five times they encountered the word sheol in the Bible; how did they render it into Greek? Their treatment of this word must forever settle it as to what the word meant in their day. They did not render it hell, tartarus, not even in Is. 14:9, where it might bear such a meaning. They did not render it grave, though there are two Greek words—mnema for grave, and taphos for tomb—that would have exactly answered their purpose if they had thought, as Millennium Dawn does, that sheol means grave, or oblivion. Evidently these old Hebrews two thousand years ago were not basking in the superior effulgence of Millennial Dawn! They did not render sheol with the Greek word for pit, though that tongue has several words bearing that meaning, two of which are in the Greek New Testament. Evidently they did not think that sheol meant pit. What did they think it meant?
We are not left in doubt, for they rendered it sixty-one times out of sixty-five with the Greek word hades! There we have it. Sheol does not mean pit, hell, nor grave, but HADES!
There is no scholarly authority in all this world having any respect for intelligence and honesty that dares stand out against this testimony of the Septuagint translators, that sheol means hades! Not until Millennial Dawn arose to "illuminate" the world was there a dissenting voice. For nearly twenty-two hundred years it was practically unanimous; now Millennial Dawn arises to tell the human race that they are floundering in benighted ignorance on the subject; that sheol always means grave or oblivion.
WHAT DOES HADES MEAN?
This is the next logical step in our inquiry. Since the Septuagint translators rendered sheol with the Greek word hades, and since hades is found eleven times in the Greek New Testament, it is all important now to find out what this word actually means. And the way to find out is to inquire of Greek authors and dictionary makers. So we turn to the oldest and probably the most influential of all the Greek authors, Homer, and we find that the very first line of the Iliad declares that the wrath of Achilles "hurled many valiant souls of heroes down to Hades." This use of the word forever fixed its meaning as the place of departed spirits in the world to come.
And that meaning it has uniformly borne in all literature to this hour.
It would seem almost a work of supererogation to fill these pages with quotations from Greek lexicons giving the definition of hades. We could mention Liddell and Scott, Green, Pickering, and a dozen others; but there is not one dissenting voice that hades means the state and place of souls after death, the spirit-world, the abode of departed spirits. If it were a question to be determined by the preponderance of authorities, we would here print these definitions, but as the scholarship of the world has but one testimony to offer, it is needless to go further. If Millennial Dawn can bring forward just one learned and respectable authority to be found on the face of this earth, showing that hades ever means grave, we will confess defeat. We challenge it to show just one! And if there is none on earth, we demand of Millennial Dawn why it still goes on deceiving simple, unskilled folk with its downright misrepresentations? Such a course in secular things would be called dishonest. In the eyes of all capable and candid men a system founded upon such a false basis stands discredited.
THE GREEK NEW TESTAMENT
3—Hades in the New Testament.—Remembering what has already been said—that sheol in the Old Testament was rendered hades in the Greek Version, called the Septuagint—we find that this opened the way for hades to come into the Greek New Testament bearing the same meaning—the world of departed spirits.
We find hades in the New Testament eleven times, though one of these is a repetition by a different Gospel writer; that it has substantially the meaning which the word has in the Septuagint version, and which sheol has in the Hebrew Bible. So that the sheol of the Old Testament is the hades of the New. Let us examine these texts in the New Testament and try to find the meaning of hides there.
Matt. 11:23; Luke 10:15, "And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shall be cast down to hades." Here both heaven and hides are used figuratively. Capernaum was not literally exalted to heaven, nor was it literally cast down to hades.
Matt. 16:18, "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hades shall not prevail against it." Here again the use is figurative, and by "the gates of hades" is probably meant the powers of the invisible or spirit world.
Luke 16:19-31, "And it came to pass that the beggar died and was carried by angels into Abraham's bosom; the rich man also died and was buried; and in hades he lifted up his eyes," etc. Here we have our Lord's authority to teach that both saints and worldlings enter upon a conscious state of existence immediately after death; and there is no possible way by which Millennial Dawn can get the soul of either of them into the grave!
We shall examine this story more fully in another chapter. It is sufficient here to fix the meaning of hades as a state of conscious existence upon the authority of our Lord Himself.
Acts 2:27, 31, "Thou wilt not leave my soul in hades." "His soul was not left in hades." This is an inspired apostle's authority for declaring that while our Lord's body was in the tomb His soul was in hades; also that hides is the correct rendering of the word sheol in the Sixteenth Psalm, from which Peter was quoting. There is no grave about it. What has Millennial Dawn to say to that?
1 Cor. 15:55, "O death, where is thy sting? O hades, where is thy victory?" This is Paul's splendid paraphrase of Hosea 13:14, and both are prophecies of the resurrection when death must give up the body, and hades must surrender the soul.
Rev. 1:18, "I have the keys of death and hades."
Rev. 6:8, "And I saw a pale horse, and he that sat upon him was death; and hades followed with him." This represents death cutting down the bodies, and hades following close after to claim the souls.
Rev. 20:13, 14, "And death and hades gave up the dead that were in them; and death and hades were cast into the lake of fire." This is descriptive of the resurrection; death surrenders the bodies which it holds, and hades releases the souls which it has so long held in captivity.
The fact that they both come to an end in the lake of fire shows that they both represent an intermediate state. Eternity lies beyond the general judgment.
SHEOL-HADES IN OUR ENGLISH VERSION
4—We must next consider how these words were rendered in our English Bible.—Luther and the Reformers were so anxious to get rid of the doctrine of Purgatory that they went to the extreme of practically expunging every trace of the intermediate state from the body of Christian doctrines and from the languages of modern Europe. It is not therefore to be wondered at that there is no word in either the German or the English languages to represent sheol and hades; nor that the nations that use these tongues are ignorant of the real facts concerning them. As a result King James' Version mistranslates sheol thirty-one times grave, thirty-one times hell, and three times pit, and thus succeeds in missing its true meaning every time!
The Revised Version translates sheol fifteen times grave, fifteen times hell, and five times pit, and then proceeds to atone for the blunder by transliterating it thirty times, which it ought to have done sixty-five times. But this treatment was better than any version before it had attempted, and was a move in the right direction.
The American Revision has done the only thing that could possibly be done correctly—not to translate it at all, because there is no word in the English language which can possibly represent sheol. They transliterated and thus made an English word of it every time they found it. It is no longer a Hebrew word exclusively. It has by the American Revision been naturalized in the English language; and we must now know its meaning as we know the meaning of Jehovah, Zion, and Hallelujah, and many other words from the Hebrew, which have been English words for centuries. Why did not these American Revisers render sheol grave, pit, or hell? Simply because they had too much intelligence, scholarship, and honesty to perpetuate that stupid blunder any longer. Why does Millennial Dawn still persist in foisting that old discredited error upon mankind? Simply because it prefers that kind of a foundation for its system. It required a good deal of intelligence, honesty, and heroism to repudiate a blunder so thoroughly entrenched as this is, that sheol and hades always mean the grave. But the Revised Version and the American Revision have dragged the old fraud from its obscurity, and henceforth intelligent people will not remain in ignorance concerning it.
A similar treatment has been accorded the word hades in the English New Testament. The Authorized Version rendered it hell in every instance but one. This was bad enough, but it showed that they thought it meant the place where the souls
<tr><th rowspan="2">BIRTH
INTERMEDIATE STATE<br>SHEOL - HADES
"AGES of AGES" ETERNITY
SAINTS
DEE
CHILDHOOD
A
ABRAHAM'S BOSOM<br>OR<br>PARADISE
HEAVEN
SINNERS
THE GREAT
GULF
T
The LOWER SHEOL<br>OR<br>TARTARUS
GEHENNA<br>OR<br>HELL
THE MILLENNIAL DAWN HERESY
went at death, not the grave, and that was something gained. The revisers did not attempt to translate it at all, but made an English word of it in every instance. May we not now hope that intelligent Bible students will gain correct opinions concerning its true meaning? That question may be considered settled, unless Millennial Dawn is prepared to arise and tell us just where in the New Testament hades ought to be rendered grave.
SOUL-SLEEPING
Nearly all grades of millennialists have an abnormal fondness for soul-sleeping. It is a strange fascination. But to them, as to Millennial Dawn, the thought of the privilege of rotting for thousands of years, soul and all, in the grave, arouses them to a high pitch of religious frenzy. Why is this? Is it because it is so much easier to manufacture a millennium out of the world's population now in their graves than it is to bring saints out of Paradise or sinners out of Tartarus for such a purpose? They are forever telling us that when a man dies his soul goes into the grave along with his body to "sleep" till the resurrection. No considerations of the true nature of the soul, no evidences of its natural immortality, however overwhelming or convincing, are allowed to stand one moment before this strange fiction.
And what a silly fiction it is! Gentle spirits among all nations have preferred to represent the harsh and stern realities of death under the kindlier figure of sleep.
It is a literary fancy that is world-wide, and is justified by the evident similarity in appearance between one asleep and one dead. But few ever interpret this in any literal sense. Death is not sleep, and sleep is not death. Whenever we say of one dead that he is asleep, we use language figuratively. So everywhere and always with the Sacred Scriptures. The warmth and glow of the Oriental mind could not be expected to express itself upon so forbidding a subject as death except in softer and more pictorial speech. Death is represented under the figure of sleep, just as religious joy is expressed by "mountains breaking forth into singing and all the trees of the field clapping their hands." The righteous man is "like a tree planted by rivers of water." Sensible conversation is "like apples of gold in pictures of silver." We confess our sins by saying, "All we like sheep have gone astray." The universal reign of death is set forth thus, "Like a flock they rush to sheol." The wickedness of a great king is thus proclaimed, "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!" And so forth with many hundred like expressions, high-wrought, figurative, fanciful. Could less be expected of minds imbued with these Oriental feelings and training than that they would express the sad features of death with the gentler poetry of sleep?
We find the word sleep one hundred and thirty-six times in the Scriptures, and fifty-five times it is used figuratively for death.
But there is no affirmation in the Bible that death is sleep, or that sleep is death. In the Thirteenth Psalm is the expression, "sleep of death," as if the author felt that the word sleep alone was not quite sufficient to express real death. But the Orientals were not confused by this use of the term sleep. Several times in the Gospels we have the statement concerning the maiden, "She is not dead but sleepeth." Jesus said to His disciples, "Our friend Lazarus sleepeth." They understood him as speaking literally, and suggested that sleep would do him good. Then Jesus dropped the figure and spoke to them in literal terms, "Lazarus is dead." That incident and the use our Lord made of the figure of sleep ought to satisfy all fair-minded men that when one is dead he is not in any sense asleep, and that the Biblical use of sleep for death is always figurative.
When kings and eminent persons died the Hebrew writers generally said, "He slept with his fathers;" but when men of lesser rank died that fact was often stated in more literal terms, as note 1 Kings 11:21, "Hadad heard in Egypt that David slept with his fathers and that Joab was dead." Is not such an instance ample proof that when the dead are said to be asleep the language is figurative?
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