Book I: Chapter 13

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CHAPTER XIII.
OF THE DEATH OF THE BODY.

THE third degree of death is what is called the death of the body. To this all the labours, sorrows, and diseases which afflict the body, are nothing but the prelude. Gen. iii. 16. 'I will greatly multiply thy sorrow.' v. 17. 'in sorrow shalt thou eat of it.' v. 19. 'in the sweat of thy face thou shalt eat bread.' Job v. 7. 'man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward.' Deut, xxviii. 22. 'Jehovah shall smite thee with a consumption.' Hos. ii. 18. 'in that day will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field.' Rom. ii. 9. 'tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil.' All nature is likewise subject to mortality and a curse on account of man. Gen. iii. 17. 'cursed is the ground for thy sake.' Rom. viii. 20, 21. 'the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly.' Even the beasts are not exempt, Gen. iii. 14. vi. 7. So 'the first-born of beasts' in the land of Egypt perished for the sins of their masters, Exod. xi. 5.

The death of the body is to be considered in the light of a punishment for sin, no less than the other degrees of death, notwithstanding the contrary opinion <362> entertained by some.^[1] Rom. v. 13, 14. 'until the law sin was in the world..... death reigned from Adam to Moses.' 1 Cor. xv. 21. 'since by man came death;' that is to say, temporal as well as eternal death; as is clear from the corresponding member of the sentence, 'by man came also the resurrection from the dead;' therefore that bodily death from which we are to rise again, originated in sin, and not in nature; contrary to the opinion of those who maintain that temporal death is the result of natural causes, and that eternal death alone is due to sin.^[2]

The death of the body is the loss or extinction of life. The common definition, which supposes it to consist in the separation of soul and body, is inadmissible,^[3] For what part of man is it that dies when this separation takes place? Is it the soul? This will not be admitted by the supporters of the above definition. Is it then the body? But how can that be said <363> to die, which never had any life of itself? Therefore the separation of soul and body cannot be called the death of man.

Here then arises an important question, which, owing to the prejudice of divines in behalf of their preconceived opinions, has usually been dismissed without examination, instead of being treated with the attention it deserves. Is it the whole man, or the body alone, that is deprived of vitality? And as this is a subject which may be discussed without endangering our faith or devotion, whichever side of the controversy we espouse, I shall declare freely what seems to me the true doctrine, as collected from numberless passages of Scripture; without regarding the opinion of those, who think that truth is to be sought in the schools of philosophy, rather than in the sacred writings.

Inasmuch then as the whole man is uniformly said to consist of body, spirit, and soul, (whatever may be the distinct provinces severally assigned to these divisions,) I will show, that in death, first the whole man, and secondly, each component part suffers privation of life. It is to be observed, first of all, that God denounced the punishment of death against the whole man that sinned, without excepting any part. For what could be more just, than that he who had sinned in his whole person, should die in his whole person? Or, on the other hand, what could be more absurd than that the mind, which is the part principally offending, should escape the threatened death; and that the body alone, to which immortality was equally allotted, before death came into the world by <364> sin,^[4] should pay the penalty of sin by undergoing death, though not implicated in the transgression?

It is evident that the saints and believers of old, the patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, without exception, held this doctrine. Jacob. Gen. xxxvii. 35. 'I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning.' xlii. 36. 'Joseph is not.' So also Job, ch. iii. 12-18. 'as an hidden untimely birth I had not been; as infants which never saw light.' Compare x. 21. xiv. 10. 'man giveth up the ghost, and where is he?' v. 13. 'so man lieth down, and riseth not, till the heavens be no more.' xvii. 13. 'if I wait, the grave is mine house.' v. 15, 16. 'where is now my hope?..... they shall go down to the bars of the pit.' See also many other passages. The belief of David was the same, as is evident from the reason so often given by him for deprecating the approach of death. Psal. vi. 5. 'in death there is no remembrance of thee; in the grave who shall give thee thanks?' See also lxxxviii. 11-13. cxv. 17. 'the dead praise not Jehovah.' xxxix. 13. 'before I go hence, and be no more.' cxlvi. 2. 'while I live will I praise Jehovah.' Certainly if he had believed that his soul would survive, and be received immediately into heaven, he would <365> have abstained from all such remonstrances, as one who was shortly to take his flight where he might praise God unceasingly. It appears that the belief of Peter respecting David was the same as David's belief respecting himself: Acts ii. 29, 34. 'let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day..... for David is not ascended into the heavens.' Again, it is evident that Hezekiah fully believed that he should die entirely, where he laments that it is impossible to praise God in the grave. Isai. xxxviii. 18, 19. 'for the grave cannot praise thee: death cannot celebrate thee; they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth: the living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day.' God himself bears testimony to the same truth. Isai. lvii. 1, 2. 'the righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart; and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come; he shall enter into peace; they shall rest in their beds.' Jer. xxxi. 15. compared with Matt. ii. 18. 'Rachel weeping for her children, refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not.' Thus also Daniel, ch. xii. 2. 'many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake.' It is on the same principle that Christ himself proves God to be a God of the living, Luke xx. 37, &c. arguing from their future resurrection; for if they were then living, it would not necessarily follow from his argument that there would be a resurrection of the body: hence he says John xi. 25. 'I am the resurrection and the life.' Accordingly he declares expressly, that there is not even a place appointed for <366> the abode of the saints in heaven, till the resurrection: John xiv. 2, 3. 'I go to prepare a place for you: and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.' There is no sufficient reason for interpreting this of the body; it is clear therefore that it was spoken, and should be understood, of the reception of the soul and spirit conjointly with the body into heaven, and that not till the coming of the Lord. So likewise Luke xx. 35. Acts vii. 60. 'when he had said this, he fell asleep.' xxiii. 6. 'the hope and resurrection of the dead;' that is, the hope of the resurrection, which was the only hope the apostle professed to entertain. Thus also xxiv. 21. xxvi. 6-8. 1 Cor. xv. 17-19. 'if Christ be not raised' (which resurrection took place for the very purpose that mankind might likewise rise again) 'then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ, are perished;' whence it appears that there were only two alternatives, one of which must ensue; either they must rise again, or perish: for 'if in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable;' which again indicates that we must either believe in the resurrection, or have our hope in this life only. v. 29, 30. 'if the dead rise not at all, why stand we in jeopardy every hour?' v. 32. 'let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die;' that is, die altogether, for otherwise the argument would have no force. In the verses which follow, from v. 42. to v. 50. the reasoning proceeds on the supposition that there are only two states, the mortal and the immortal, death and resurrection; not a word is said of any intermediate condition. Nay, Paul himself affirms that <367> the crown of righteousness which was laid up for him was not to be received before that last day: 2 Tim. iv. 8. 'henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day, and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.' If a crown were laid up for the apostle, it follows that it was not to be received immediately after death. At what time then was it to be received? At the same time when it was to be conferred on the rest of the saints, that is, not till the appearance of Christ in glory. Philipp. ii. 16. 'that I may rejoice in the day of Christ,' iii. 11. 'if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.' v. 20, 21. 'our conversation is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ; who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body.' Our conversation therefore is in heaven, not where we are now dwelling, but in that place from whence we look for the coming of the Saviour, who shall conduct us thither. Luke xx. 35, 36. 'they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, &c..... for they are equal unto the angels..... being the children of the resurrection,' —that is, when they finally become such; whence it follows, that previous to the resurrection they are not admitted to that heavenly world.

Thus far proof has been given of the death of the whole man. But lest recourse should be had to the sophistical distinction, that although the whole man dies, it does not therefore follow that the whole of man should die, I proceed to give similar proof with <368> regard to each of the parts, the body, the spirit, and the soul, according to the division above stated.

First, then, as to the body, no one doubts that it suffers privation of life. Nor will the same be less evident as regards the spirit, if it be allowed that the spirit, according to the doctrine laid down in the seventh chapter, has no participation in the divine nature, but is purely human; and that no reason can be assigned, why, if God has sentenced to death the whole of man that sinned, the spirit, which is the part principally offending, should be alone exempt from the appointed punishment; especially since, previous to the entrance of sin into the world, all parts of man were alike immortal; and that, since that time, in pursuance of God's denunciation, all have become equally subject to death.^[5] But to come to the proofs. <369> The Preacher himself, the wisest of men, expressly denies that the spirit is exempt from death: iii. 18-20. 'as the beast dieth, so dieth the man; yea, they have all one breath..... all go unto one place.' And in the twenty —first verse, he condemns the ignorance of those who venture to affirm that the way of the spirits of men and of beasts after death is different: 'who knoweth the spirit of man, (an sursum ascendat,) whether it goeth upward?'^[6] Psal. cxlvi. 4. 'his breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.' Now the thoughts are in the mind and the spirit, not in the body; and if they perish, we must conclude that the mind and spirit undergo the same fate as the body. 1 Cor. v. 5. 'that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus:' the apostle does not say in the day of death, but in the day of the Lord.

Lastly, there is abundant testimony to prove that the soul (whether we understand by this term the whole human composition, or whether it is to be understood as synonymous with the spirit) is subject to death, natural as well as violent. Numb, xxiii. 10. 'let me (anima mea, Lat. Vulg.) die the death of the righteous.' Such are the words of Balaam, who, though not the most upright of prophets, yet in this instance uttered the words which the Lord put into his mouth; v. 9. Job xxxiii. 18. 'he keepeth back his soul from the pit.' xxxvi. 14. 'they (anima corum, Lat. Vulg.) die in youth.' Psal. xxii. 20. <370> 'deliver my soul from the sword.' lxxviii. 50. 'he spared not their soul from death.' lxxxix. 48. 'shall he deliver his soul from the hand of the grave?' xciv. 17. 'my soul had almost dwelt in silence.' Hence man himself, when dead, is spoken of under the name of 'the soul'; Lev. xix. 28. Hebr. and xxi. 1, 11.'neither shall he go in to any dead body?'(soul, Hebr.) Isai. xxxviii, 17. 'thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption.' The just and sufficient reason assigned above for the death of the soul, is the same which is given by God himself; Ezek. xviii. 20. 'the soul that sinneth, it shall die:' and therefore, on the testimony of the prophet and the apostle, as well as of Christ himself, the soul even of Christ was for a short time subject unto death on account of our sins: Psal. xvi. 10. compared with Acts ii. 27, 28, 31. 'his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption.' Matt. xx vi. 38. 'my soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death.' Nor do we anywhere read that the souls assemble, or are summoned to judgement, from heaven or from hell, but that they are all called out of the tomb, or at least that they were previously in the state of the dead.' John. v. 28, 29. 'the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth.' In this passage those who rise again, those who hear, those who come forth, are all described as being in the graves, the righteous as well as the wicked. 1 Cor. xv. 52. 'the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised.' 1 Thess. iv. 13-17. 'but I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others <371> which have no hope: for if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him: for this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep; for the Lord himself shall descend,' &c.....'and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain, shall be caught up together with them into the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord.' They were asleep; but the lifeless body does not sleep, unless inanimate matter can be said to sleep. 'That ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope,' —but why should they sorrow and have no hope, if they believed that their souls would be in a state of salvation and happiness even before the resurrection, whatever might become of the body? The rest of the world, indeed, who had no hope, might with reason despair concerning the soul as well as the body, because they did not believe in the resurrection; and therefore it is to the resurrection that Paul directs the hope of all believers. 'Them which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him;' that is, to heaven from the grave. 'We which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.' But there would have been no reason to fear lest the survivors should prevent them, if they who were asleep had long since been received into heaven; in which case the latter would not come 'to meet the Lord', but would return with him. 'We' however, 'which are alive shall be caught up together with them,' not after them, 'and so shall we ever be with <372> the Lord,' namely, after, not before the resurrection. And then at length 'the wicked shall be severed from among the just,' Matt. xiii. 49. Dan. xii. 2. 'many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.' In such a sleep I should suppose Lazarus to have been lying, if it were asked whither his soul betook itself during those four days of death. For I cannot believe that it would have been called back from heaven to suffer again the inconveniences of the body, but rather that it was summoned from the grave, and roused from the sleep of death. The words of Christ themselves lead to this conclusion: John xi. 11, 13. 'our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep: howbeit Jesus spake of his death:' which death, if the miracle were true, must have been real. This is confirmed by the circumstances of Christ's raising him; v. 43. 'he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus come forth.' If the soul of Lazarus, that is, if Lazarus himself was not within the grave, why did Christ call on the lifeless body which could not hear? If it were the soul which he addressed, why did he call it from a place where it was not? Had he intended to intimate that the soul was separated from the body, he would have directed his eyes to the quarter whence the soul of Lazarus might be expected to return, namely, from heaven: for to call from the grave what is not there, is like seeking the living among the dead, which the angel reprehended as ignorance in the disciples, Luke xxiv. 5. the same is apparent in the raising of the widow's son: Luke vii. 14.

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On the other hand, those who assert that the soul is exempt from death, and that when divested of the body, it wings its way, or is conducted by angels, directly to its appointed place of reward or punishment, where it remains in a separate state of existence to the end of the world, found their belief principally on the following passages of Scripture. Psal. xlix. 15. 'God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave.' But this proves rather that the soul enters the grave with the body, as was shown above, from whence it needs to be redeemed, namely, at the resurrection, when 'God shall receive it,' as follows in the same verse. As for the remainder, 'their redemption ceaseth for ever.' v. 8. and they are 'like the beasts that perish,' v. 12, 14.

The second text is Eccles. xii. 7. 'the spirit shall return unto God that gave it.' But neither does this prove what is required; for the phrase, 'the spirit returning to God,' must be understood with considerable latitude; since the wicked do not return to God at death, but depart far from him. The preacher had moreover said before, iii. 20. 'all go unto one place;' and God is said both to have given, and to gather unto himself the spirit of every living thing, whilst the body returns to dust, Job xxxiv. 14, 15. 'if he gather unto himself his spirit and his breath, all flesh shall perish together, and man shall turn again unto dust.' See also Psal. civ. 29, 30. Euripides in the Suppliants has, without being aware of it, given a far better interpretation of this passage than the commentators in question.^[7]

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ὅθεν δ᾽ ἕκαστον εἰς τὸ φῶς,^[8] ἀφκέτο, ἐνταῦθ᾽ ἀπεθεῖν, πνεῦμα μὲν πρὸς αἰθέρα, τὸ σῶμα δ᾽—-. 532. Edit. Beck.

Each various part

That constitutes the frame of man, returns

Whence it was taken; to th'ethereal sky

The soul, the body to its earth.

Line 599. Potter's Transl.

that is, every constituent part returns at dissolution to its elementary principle. This is confirmed by Ezek. xxxvii. 9. 'come from the four winds, O breath;' it is certain therefore that the spirit of man must have previously departed thither from whence it is now summoned to return. Hence perhaps originates the expression in Matt. xxiv. 31. 'they shall gather together the elect from the four winds.' For why should not the spirits of the elect be as easily gathered together as the smallest particles of their bodies, sometimes most widely dispersed throughout <375> different countries? In the same manner is to be understood 1 Kings xvii. 21. 'let this child's soul come into him again.' This however is a form of speech applied to fainting in general: Judges xv. 19. 'his spirit came again, and he revived.' See also 1 Sam. xxx. 12. For there are many passages of Scripture, some of which have been already quoted, which undoubtedly represent the dead as devoid of all vital existence; but what was advanced above respecting the death of the spirit affords a sufficient answer to the objection.

The third passage is Matt. x. 28. 'fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul.' It may be answered that, properly speaking, the body cannot be killed, as being in itself a thing inanimate: the body therefore, as is common in Scripture, must be taken for the whole human compound, or for the animal and temporal life; the soul for that spiritual life with which we shall be clothed after the end of the world, as appears from the remainder of the verse, and from 1 Cor. xv. 44.

The fourth text is Philipp. i. 23. 'having a desire to depart (cupiens dissolvi, having a desire for dissolution) and to be with Christ.' But, to say nothing of the uncertain and disputed sense of the word ἀναλῦσαι, which signifies any thing rather than dissolution,^[9] it may be answered, that although Paul desired to obtain immediate possession of heavenly perfection and glory, in like manner as every one is desirous of attaining as soon as possible to that, what <376> ever it may be, which he regards as the ultimate object of his being, it by no means follows that, when the soul of each individual leaves the body, it is received immediately either into heaven or hell. For he 'had a desire to be with Christ;' that is, at his appearing, which all the believers hoped and expected was then at hand. In the same manner one who is going on a voyage desires to set sail and to arrive at the destined port, (such is the order in which his wishes arrange themselves) omitting all notice of the intermediate passage. If, however, it be true that there is no time without motion, which Aristotle illustrates by the example of those who were fabled to have slept in the temple of the heroes, and who, on awaking, imagined that the moment in which they awoke had succeeded without an interval to that in which they fell asleep;^[10] how much more must intervening time be annihilated to the departed, so that to them to die and to be with Christ will seem to take place at the same moment? Christ himself, however, ex <377> pressly indicates the time at which we shall be with him; John xiv. 3. 'if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive yon unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.'

The fifth text evidently favours my view of the subject: 1 Pet. iii. 19. 'by which also he went and preached to the spirits that are in prison,' literally, in guard, or, as the Syriac version renders it, in sepulchro, in the grave, which means the same; for the grave is the common guardian of all till the day of judgement. What therefore the apostle says more fully, iv. 5, 6. 'who shall give account to him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead; for, for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead,' he expresses it in this place by a metaphor, 'the spirits that are in guard;' it follows, therefore, that the spirits are dead.

The sixth text is Rev. vi. 9. 'I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain.' I answer, that in the Scripture idiom the soul is generally often put for the whole animate body, and that in this passage it is used for the souls of those who were not yet born; unless indeed the fifth seal was already opened in the time of John; in the same manner as in the parable of Dives and Lazarus, Luke xvi. though Christ, for the sake of the lesson to be conveyed, speaks of that as present which was not to take place till after the day of judgement, and describes the dead as placed in two distinct states, he by no means intimates any separation of the soul from the body.

The seventh text is Luke xxiii. 43. 'Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise,' This passage has on vari <378> ous accounts occasioned so much trouble, that some have not hesitated to alter the punctuation, as if it had been written, 'I say unto thee to-day;^[11] that is, although I seem to-day the most despised and miserable of all men, yet I declare to thee and assure thee, that thou shalt hereafter be with me in paradise, that is, in some pleasant place, (for properly speaking paradise is not heaven) or in the spiritual state allotted to the soul and body. The same expedient has been resorted to Matt, xxvii. 52, 53. At the time of the earthquake, on the same day (not three days after, as is generally supposed) the graves were opened, the dead arose and came out, v. 52. καὶ ἐξελθόντες, and having come out at length after the resurrection of Christ they went into the holy city; for so, according to Erasmus, the ancient Greeks pointed the passage;^[12] and with this the Syriac agrees: et egressi sunt, et post resurrectionem ejus ingressi sunt, &c. That spiritual state in which the souls as well as bodies of the arising saints previously abode, might not improperly be called paradise; and it was in this state, as appears to me, that the penitent thief was united to the other saints without punishment for sin. <379> Nor is it necessary to take the word to-day in its strict acceptation, but rather for a short time, as in 2 Sam. xvi. 3. Heb. iii. 7. However this may be, so much clear evidence should not be rejected on account of a single passage, of which it is not easy to give a satisfactory interpretation.

The eighth text is the forty-sixth verse of the same chapter; 'into thy hands I commend my spirit.' But the spirit is not therefore separated from the body, or incapable of death; for David uses the same language Psal. xxxi. 5, although he was not then about to die: 'into thine hand I commit my spirit,' while it was yet abiding in, and with the body. So Stephen, Acts vii. 59. 'Lord Jesus, receive my spirit..... and when he had said this, he fell asleep.' It was not the bare spirit divested of the body that he commended to Christ, but 'the whole spirit and soul and body,' as it is expressed 1 Thess. v. 23. Thus the spirit of Christ was to be raised again with the body on the third day, while that of Stephen was to be reserved till the appearing of the Lord. So 1 Pet. iv. 19. 'let them commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing.'

The ninth passage is 2 Cor. v. 1-20. It is sufficiently apparent, however, that the object of this passage is not to inculcate the separation of the soul from the body, but to contrast the animal and terrestrial life of the whole man with the spiritual and heavenly. Hence in the first verse 'the house of this tabernacle' is opposed, not to the soul, but to 'a building of God, an house not made with hands,' that is, to the final renewal of the whole man, as Beza also explains it,^[13] <380> whereby 'we are clothed upon' in the heavens, 'being clothed..... not naked,' v. 3. This distinctly appears from the fourth verse: 'not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.' See also v. 5. 'now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God;' not for the separation of the soul from the body, but for the perfecting of both. Wherefore the clause in the eighth verse, 'to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord,' must be understood of the consummation of our happiness; and 'the body' must be taken for this frail life, as is common in the sacred writers, and the 'absence' spoken of v. 9. for our eternal departure to an heavenly world; or perhaps to be 'at home in the body, and to be absent from the Lord,' v. 6. may mean nothing more than to be entangled in worldly affairs, and to have little leisure for heavenly things; the reason of which is given v. 7. 'for we walk by faith, not by sight:' whence it follows, v. 8. 'we are confident and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord; that is, to renounce worldly things as much as possible, and to be occupied with things heavenly. The ninth verse proves still more clearly that the expressions 'to be present' and 'to be absent' both refer to this life: 'wherefore we labour that whether present or absent, we may be accepted of God:' for no one supposes that the souls of men are occupied from the time of death to that of the resurrection in <381> endeavours to render themselves acceptable to God in heaven; that is the employment of the present life, and its reward is not to be looked for till the second coming of Christ. For the apostle says, v. 10. 'we must all appear before the judgement-seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.' There is consequently no recompense of good or bad after death, previous to the day of judgement. Compare 1 Cor. xv. the whole of which chapter throws no small light on this passage. The same sense is to be ascribed to 2 Pet. i. 13-15; 'as long as I am in this tabernacle,' &c. that is, in this life. It is however unnecessary to prolong this discussion, as there is scarcely one of the remaining passages of Scripture which has not been already explained by anticipation.

The fourth and last degree of death, is death eternal, the punishment of the damned; which will be considered in the twenty-seventh chapter.