5. Souls

"When he opened the fifth seal, I saw underneath the Altar the souls of them who had been slain" -- tas psuchas ton esphagmenon. Clerical metaphysicians, with rare exceptions, declare these hieroglyphic souls seen by John in vision to be the disembodied immortal spirits of saints with Christ in heaven. The Alexandrian and Origenic philosophy -- the exceedingly thin and innutritious fluid supplied them by what they call their Almae Matres -- knows no other souls, and can make no other disposition of them than this. With this heathen theory of souls darkening their understandings, the Apocalypse is for them a sealed book. Their attempted interpretations have all failed because they have sought an exposition in harmony with this dogma, which is the rope of sand by which the whole edifice of their Laodicean superstition is bound together. What they call "religion" is for the conversion, and salvation from eternal torment in flaming brimstone, and from the Devil, of immortal and post-mortem disembodied spirits, by sending them at death on angels’ wings to heavenly kingdoms beyond the realms of time and space! But there is no such soul; and, therefore, the "religion" invented for it by the Laodicean Apostasy is vain -- a mere invention for the salvation of a nonentity, or, in the expressive language of Paul, "a lie" (2 Thess. ii. 11). But, being divinely and judicially deluded "because they receive not the love of the truth that they might be saved," they seek support for "the lie" they believe in this fifth seal. They think it is a proof of the existence of a part of man in a conscious state altogether independent of body. That the dead are not dead, but, freed from "mortal coil," exceedingly elastic and lively; that "the dead" is a phrase only to be applied to body; that, beyond this, there is really no such thing as death; so that "the dead" is only a conventionalism, by which the living freed from mortal coil in the world of spirits is to be understood; and that, though divided from us by the veil of flesh, they are highly intellectual and well informed of all that is transacting among the sons of men; and many more absurdities they teach, styled by the Spirit "the depths of the Satan as they teach," which are so well known by all who are familiar with pulpit traditions that it is needless to encumber our pages with any more details.

In addition to what we have already said about souls underneath the Altar, we may remark that all the corporeal organizations of the animal world are denominated souls in the scripture. A few references will sufficiently prove this. "And Elohim said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly !hebrew! sheretz nephesh khayyah, ‘swarming soul of life’" Gen. i. 20. In the next verse all fish are termed souls; and, in verse 24, all creatures produced from the earth are styled nephesh khayyah, "soul of life." In verse 28, the creatures thus called are summed up as !hebrew! kol-khayyah "everything of life;" and, in verse 30, every beast, fowl, and reptile, are said to have "in" them "soul of life."

What the Spirit, who made them all, says of these creatures, he affirms also of man. He, even as they, has in him "breath of lives" and "soul of life," and is "a soul" or body "of life." Thus, in Gen. ii. 7, it reads, "And Yahweh Elohim formed the man, dust of the ground; and breathed into his nostrils breath of lives; and the man was FOR A BODY OF LIFE" -- le nephesh khayyah. If we come to the word with our minds free from tradition, there is no difficulty in understanding this simple statement. The man is put on the same footing with all other creatures. They are bodies or "souls of life," and so is he; they all have "the breath of the spirit of lives," and so has he; they are all "dust of the ground," save those from the waters, and so is he; the only difference between him and them is the same thing that constitutes the difference between the dog and the lion, or the elephant and the camel -- organization of the dust.

The same "breath of the spirit of lives," I say, is common to all animals and man. This will be evident to those who can consult the original of Gen. vii. 22,15. They know that in the English Version it is not correctly rendered "breath of life;" the words "the spirit of" have been unfaithfully omitted. In verse 15, the words rendered "breath of life" are not the same as those similarly rendered in Gen. ii. 7. In this, it reads !hebrew! nishmath khayyim, "breath of lives;" and in that, "from all the flesh which has in it !hebrew! ruach khayyim, spirit of lives." So that man is affirmed to have "the breath of lives" in his nostrils, and all other flesh "the spirit of lives" in theirs; hence, as spirit is regarded as of a higher dignity than breath, we might, on such premises, conclude that the "lower" animals are really demiurgically superior to man. And, indeed, when we compare the doings of said animals with the conduct of men, lay and clerical, we might suppose that the stupidity and brutishness of brain-flesh was truly their distinguishing characteristic, and that the so-called "brutes" were essentially their superiors. But said premises are not sound; for the superiority of the one race over the other is not predicated on the matter of which they are made, and by which they are vitalized, but on the organic formation of the same. Hence, there is no natural demiurgic difference between an Archbishop of New York or of Canterbury, or a Bishop of Natal, and the serpent and monkey tribes of the forest; the Spirit, therefore, by Moses (and this perhaps, may be the reason why the Bishop of Natal is so hostile to Moses) has been careful in Gen. vii. 22, to give us to understand that the nishmah and ruach, "breath" and "spirit," are common to all kinds of human brutes, both "lower animals" and men. I say human brutes, for the word human, which one class of brutes has appropriated to itself exclusively, really or demiurgically pertains to all the earthborns or formations from the ground*. The text reads, after mentioning all the creatures, "and every man, all which has breath of spirit of lives, !hebrew! kol asher nishmath-ruach khayyim, in their nostrils, out of all which is in the dry land, died."

[* Homo, a man or woman, for humo, from humus, h.e., made of earth. Hence, humanus, human (Lat. Dict.).]
 
 

We have seen that man and the other creatures are all termed nephesh, and are said to have nephesh in them; and in Gen. ix. 4, we are informed by the Spirit what nephesh elementally, or in concrete essence, is, in the law given to Noah. "Flesh with its nephesh, or soul, its blood, ye shall not eat." >From these premises, then, we learn, that men and their brethren of the ground are all of them souls -- human or ground-souls; that they have all got souls in them; and that these souls are the blood of their flesh. For further remarks upon soul in blood see what we have written concerning the Altar.

Now, by this Mosaic testimony the Eternal Teacher proclaims the doctrine that man, though created in the image and likeness of Elohim, as Seth was in the image and likeness of Adam, hath nevertheless "no pre-eminence over a beast." And this testimony is doubtless true, and in perfect harmony with man’s developments when abandoned by his creator to his own instincts and lusts. But, we are not left to inference. The Spirit has endorsed our inferences by positive testimony. In speaking by Solomon of the !hebrew! divrah, or cause for adjudication, termed "estate of the sons of the man," the old man of the flesh, the king is caused to say, "would that the Elohim would purify them, so that they might see for themselves that they are beasts. For that which befalleth the sons of the man also befalleth the beasts; even one thing befalleth them; as dieth the one, so dieth the other; for there is one spirit for all; so that excellence over the beast the man hath none; for the whole are a vapour (Psal. lxxviii. 39). The whole go to one place: the whole was from the dust, and the whole return to the dust. Who knoweth the spirit of the sons of the man that it goeth upwards? Or the spirit of the beast that it goeth downwards to the earth? Wherefore I perceive that there is nothing better than that the man rejoice in his works; for that is his portion: for who shall cause him to see what shall be after him?" (Eccl. iii. 18).

Leaving the reader, then, to adjudicate the traditions of the Apostasy by this divine teaching, I proceed to remark that the Spirit has favored us with a comment upon his own words in Gen. ii. 7, in what he caused Paul to write in 1 Cor. xv. 44,45. "There is a natural body," saith he; a soma psuchikon: and he proceeds to prove the assertion by quoting the words of Moses, saying, "And so it is written. The first man Adam was made into a living soul" -- eis psuchen zosan. These words are parallel with le-nephesh khayyah, and are explanatory of them. If the Spirit be asked, what is a nephesh khayyah, he answers in Greek, psuche tzosa; and if it be further inquired, what is psuche tzosa? the English version replies, a living soul, or a natural body; but as !hebrew! khayyah is not an adjective, but a substantive, it should be rendered a body of life.

And what, then? say "the merchants of the earth," who auction off their spiritual merchandize from the pulpits of all lands. Are not "bodies and the souls of men," somata kai psuchai anthropon, the most precious of our wares? But wherein is the preciousness of souls, which we proclaim to be immortal jewels, whose estimation is incalculable, if men have no pre-eminence over monkeys; and bishops, deans, and ministers, no excellence over the reptiles of the wilderness? The supposition is downright atheism and infidelity! (Apoc. xviii. 13,11).

Doubtless, in the opinion of the soul-merchants of the earth the Spirit’s teaching is both atheistic and infidel, for it is destructive of their whole system. He has, to speak apocalyptically, "spued them out of his mouth;" how, then, could there be any harmony between his word or teaching and their theologies? They teach that there are in men "immortal souls;" souls which are immaterial, and therefore immortal; and which when their bodies die, exist without bodies: that the value of a single such soul is incalculable; and that it is the possession of this divine incorporeal entity angelized at death, which constitutes the pre-eminence of men over all other created things. But to such, the Spirit rejoins, "Fools and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!" -- "Man that is in honour, and understandeth not, is like the beasts that perish" (Psal. xlix. 12,20). One such divine oracle is worth incalculably more than whole shiploads of university logic and collegiate "bodies of divinity."

This, then, is the grand principle upon which the immortality of man is based -- a scriptural comprehension of the truth developing a faith that works by love and purifies the heart in the obedience it commands. A man with such an understanding heart is a "spiritual man;" but before he had the understanding of the truth, he was like bishops, deans, ministers, reptiles and monkeys, without pre-eminence demiurgically on any other speciality than form. The "natural man," the Spirit saith, is a beast; a mere "body of life." He may be decorated with all imaginable titles of honor, and humbly worshipped by his fellows; nevertheless, if he "understandeth not," he is a mere natural still. There is no seed of immortality in him.

Now, the scriptures teach that the seed of immortality in a believing man is Christ; and therefore he is styled by Paul in writing to saints in Colosse, "Christ our life." "I am," said Christ, "the truth and the life." "Let Christ," says Paul, "dwell in your hearts by faith;" hence, "the truth and the life" dwell in the heart by faith, by an intelligent comprehension and conviction of the truth. A man of such an understanding has life in him in this sense; and in the same sense it is, that "he believing into the Son hath everlasting life" (John iii. 36); for "my words," saith Christ, "are spirit and life" (vi. 63).

From this testimony, it will be perceived, that the principle of a man’s immortality is not physical or material, but doctrinal -- the truth revealed and believed. Faith such as Abraham had, gives a believer "a right" to eternal life; and in so doing makes him "an heir of life," and "joint heir with Christ of all things." Hence, it is written, Apoc. xxii. 14, "Blessed are those who wash their robes that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city." So Tregelles’ text. It is equivalent to the words in the Common Version; for no believer can "wash his robes white in the blood of the Lamb" unless he "do his commandments," which say to him who believes the gospel of the kingdom "metanoeite, change the mind, and be immersed upon the name of Jesus Christ for or into the remission of sins" (Acts ii. 38). To obey these commandments is to wash the robes white in the blood of Christ, and to obtain a right to life when he shall appear in glory (Col. iii. 4). By such a washing, he lays hold of the horns of the Altar, and is safe, if he continue within the Altar, otherwise not.

But, the right obtained may be forfeited by misconduct. Hence, Paul says to certain who had obtained the right, "If ye walk after the flesh, ye shall die;" that is, if ye obey the instincts and lusts of the natural man ye shall die, or forfeit your right. He therefore exhorted them to keep down these lusts by the power of the truth; and assured them that, if they sought for glory, honor, incorruptibility, and life, by "a patient continuance in well doing," the Deity would render them eternal life (Rom. ii. 7); and thus, the right obtained would merge into actual possession.

Now, when actually possessed the possessor is a "spiritual man" in the highest sense. He becomes such after resurrection from among the dead. Before he died he differed from all natural men and other animals, in that he was "filled with the knowledge of the Deity’s will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding" (Col. i. 9); and thus became "a partaker of the divine nature," in a moral sense: and in this sense also he was a spiritual man. But, though wise and understanding, he was still encumbered with a "vile body." This needed to be changed, "that it might be fashioned like to the body of Christ’s glory" -- like to that which He now has (Phil. iii. 21). In other words, he needed to be invested with the white robes symbolically given to the souls underneath the Altar; a robe, which clothes one to the feet with the incorruption of the Holy Spirit. Hence, the promise is, "When Christ shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is" (1 John iii. 2). The saints shall be like him. "I was dead," says Christ, "but I am alive for evermore" (Apoc. i. 18). Paul styles him, "the Lord the Spirit," "a Quickening Spirit," "the Lord from heaven," "the Heavenly Man," "the last Adam." The wise shall be like what he now is. They will therefore be partakers of the divine nature in a substantial material sense; in other words they will be spirit; "for that which hath been born of spirit is spirit" (John iii. 6).

From this condensed view of the subject, it will, then, be perceived, that, according to the scripture teaching, there are in the arrangements of Deity, two bodies of life; that is, two kinds of body through which life is manifested: the one body in its organization is essentially perishable; the other, essentially imperishable. Each body is formed, or organized, before it is made the medium of the life peculiar to it. At this crisis, they are simply nephesh, psuche or soul; but when the mechanism of each body is put into motion, the one becomes nephesh khayyah, psuche tzosa, living soul or natural body; and the other, soma pneumatikon, a spiritual body, "spirit;" pneuma agiosunes, spirit of holiness, or holy spirit nature. But these bodies of life are not absolutely independent of one another. Their relationship is similar to that between the wheat standing in the field in winter time, and the same plant in harvest. The perishable body is projected from the earth in the resurrection period, when it stands a body of life, waiting for the Deity to give it a body according to his own good pleasure (1 Cor. xv. 30; John v. 21) to give it a white robe if approved. No body of life is resurrected except such an one, whose organization will give expression to a character extant before death. Such a corporeally expressed character is the restoration of personal identity. The resurrected body of life, thinks, remembers, feels and acts, like Paul, or, it may be, Judas; therefore, it is Paul or Judas to all intents and purposes. But, in this stage of the affair, the resurrected body of life, so named because of identity, is a body capable of perishing again, if left to itself; or, of becoming imperishable eternally if acted upon by the power of Deity. This alternative, then, has to be determined by the Judge. Paul informs the saints of both classes -- of that class who have "walked worthy of their high vocation," and of that, who have "walked after the flesh," since their immersion -- he says to both these, "Every one of us shall give account of himself to the Deity;" "for we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ; that every one may receive dia tou somatos, through the body the things according to that he hath done, whether good or bad" (Rom. xvi. 12; 2 Cor. v. 10). Hence, Paul and Judas will both be there to tell the story of their lives in a previous state of existence. While they are giving account of themselves they are both of them bodies of life, like two plants of the same species in the field, the one may perish by frost or other cause; the other may be unaffected by evil, and yield fruit in harvest. The fate of Paul and Judas will depend on the nature of the account given by each. The rule by which the causes will be adjudicated is laid down by Paul in Gal. vi. 7,8 -- "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." A man sows before death; he reaps after rising from death. "He that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting." This is the rule, which is also illustrated by Paul himself and Judas. The last "sowed to his flesh;" and in his account he will abundantly show it. The sentence upon him in the resurrection-period will therefore doom him to "reap corruption of the flesh" -- to "receive through the body according to what he had done;" and as this was bad, he will, through the body he acquires in the future, receive "bad," or corruption. The body of life, then, named Judas, as a type of his class, remains perishable, and "when cast into outer darkness," reaps all the evil of which it is susceptible.

But Paul’s case is differently disposed of. He also may represent a class. In his previous state of being, instead of betraying the truth, or perverting it to his own fleshly purposes, he "sowed to the Spirit." By reading the New Testament, it is easy to see how he did this. He will give account of himself in accordance with what is written of him; and he had great confidence that it will be accepted. Being accepted, then, he will "of the Spirit reap everlasting life." A white robe, as it were, will be presented to him. The power of the Deity will change, or transform, the body standing at the tribunal in the twinkling of an eye; even as Paul testifies, the saints living at the advent, who may be approved, shall be changed without tasting of death (1 Cor. xv. 51,52). Thus, the body by this transformation is "clothed upon" with incorruptibility and immortality, by which "mortality is swallowed up of life" (2 Cor. iv. 4); and thus will be verified in his own experience, his own testimony, that "this corruptible must put on incorruption; and this mortal must put on immortality," when "death is swallowed up in victory" (1 Cor. xv. 53,54); and when this process is completed, Paul in victory, is spiritual in the highest sense, a body of life eternal.

The scripture teaching, then, concerning souls and immortality, has no affinity with the teaching of pulpiteers on these subjects. The scripture defines immortality to be life manifested through incorruptible body; and declares, that the only being in the universe that has it underived is the Deity (1 Tim. vi. 15,16). It also declares, that it is a part of the reward promised to the righteous to be given to them exclusively after the advent of Jesus in power, and his resurrection of them from the grave. Men attain to immortality, or deathlessness, in recompense for character, conformed to the moral image of the Deity, as he shines forth in the example of Jesus Christ. Faith and obedience are the basis of this character. Men are alienated from the life of the Deity through the ignorance that is in them (Eph. iv. 18). Hence, there is no immortality for those who understand not the gospel; and this can be believed by none who believe the foolish rhapsodies and rhodomontade histrionically dispensed from the pulpits of the world. There is no immortality out of Christ; and they only are in him, who "believe the things concerning the kingdom of the Deity, and of the name of Jesus Christ, and are immersed unto him, both men and women" (Acts viii. 12).

John says, in ch. xx. 4, "I saw the souls, tas psuchas, of them who had been beheaded on account of the testimony of Jesus, and on account of the word of the Deity ... and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years." As we have remarked before, among these beheaded souls were those of the fifth seal which he saw underneath the Altar, and to whom white robes were given. When he sees them in ch. xx they were, hieroglyphically, resurrected souls; for he says "they lived." Those in the fifth seal were, emblematically, in the death state, where nothing is really known, for "the dead know not anything" "for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, !hebrew! b’sheol (in the land of forgetfulness, Psal. lxxxviii. 12), whither thou goest" (Eccl. ix. 5,10). But, in the fifth seal symbolization, a white robe is given to each, with an injunction to repose. This repose continues till the Messenger descends from heaven with power. He then awakes them, and they stand again on their feet above ground. This is anastasis. At this crisis they are "souls" or bodies of life, prepared for investiture with the white robe of incorruption. When John saw these beheaded souls alive again he also saw thrones -- "I saw thrones," says he, "and they sat upon them." But, says Paul, "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of the Deity; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption" (1 Cor. xv. 50). Now, as I have shown, bodies of life projected from the grave, with antecedent personal identity, are perishable. At this stage, therefore, of renewed existence they could not occupy the thrones seen. They must first appear at the tribunal of Christ, the Great White Throne (xx. 11), and give account of themselves or report to him. Being deemed "holy, and unblameable, and unreproveable in his sight, having continued in the faith, rooted and settled, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel" (Col. i. 22,23); Christ transfigures the bodies of their humiliation, that they may become symmorphous or conformable to the body of his glory, through the energy whereby he is able also to subdue to himself all things (Phil. iii. 21). Being thus "clothed upon," they are no longer mere "souls," which are "naked" and put to shame if not "clothed," but incorruptible and deathless beings, "the sons of the Deity, being the sons of the resurrection, and equal to the angels" (Luke xx. 36). Thus robed in the pure incorruption of the Spirit, Paul’s objection in their case is removed, and they are qualified to possess "the thrones of the House of David;" so that it will be said to them by the King, "Come, ye blessed of my Father, take possession of the kingdom which has been prepared for you from the foundation of the state" (Matt. xxv. 34).

In dismissing this item of the fifth seal, it may be remarked that its symbolization, with respect to the souls, is the representation in emblem of ideas perfectly familiar to the christian mind of the times antecedent and concurrent with the seal. Believers were exhorted by the apostles to be ready at any time for a sacrifice of themselves. In view of his own execution, Paul says, "If I be poured out upon the sacrifice of your faith, I rejoice;" and again, "I am now ready to be offered," or poured out at the base of the altar, "and the time of my analysis is at hand." And, in the century succeeding the apostolic age, Ignatius, who was ordered to execution by Trajan, speaks of his approaching end as his being poured out as a libation to God on his altar. And speaking of Polycarp of Smyrna, who suffered about A.D. 160, his biographer says: "Having his hands tied behind him, and being bound as a ram out of a great flock for an offering, and prepared for a burnt sacrifice, acceptable to the Deity, he looked to heaven and said: ‘O Father, I give thee hearty thanks that thou hast vouchsafed to me that at this day and this hour I should have a part in the number of thy witnesses in the cup of thy Christ, unto the resurrection of eternal life both of soul and body, in the incorruption of the Holy Spirit. Among whom may I be accepted this day before thee as an acceptable sacrifice, as thou hast ordained.’" He regarded his execution as a sacrifice, or outpouring underneath the altar, and met it cheerfully, in hope of the resurrection of his soul as well as his body for investiture with the white robe, which he styles the "incorruption of the Holy Spirit."

In conclusion, I may just inform the reader that the Rev. Mr. Elliott expounds the white robes emblematically given to the souls underneath the altar as symbolical of their justification before the pagan public by the edict of the emperor Galerius, granting toleration to christians, and entreating them to pray to their God for his restoration to health. Thus, he considers their memory was justified. A remarkable robe this, and of pagan manufacture too! A clergyman might rejoice in the honor of such a justification, but certainly not the humblest of the saints.

(research topic Mr Elliott was ....)