01.05. Man's Constitution and Future
V. AN ENQUIRY AS TO MAN’S CONSTITUTION AND FUTURE, WITH REMARKS ON HADES AND PARADISE. As treasures heavy and valuable may hang upon a small hook, so consequences weighty and far‑reaching may follow the settlement of what may seem a small point.
Because at death the spirit of man returns to God who gave it (Ecclesiastes 12:7), it is generally thought that man goes then to God in heaven. If the passage meant this it would teach that the ungodly, as well as the godly, go to heaven at death, for it refers to man as man. This alone shows that this is not the sense of the passage. But further, the meaning given assumes that the man, the conscious entity, the person, the ego, is his spirit. But if this is not so, then the opinion stated, has no support in Scripture.
Again, many annihilationists deem that the man, the person, consists of two parts only, the body and the spirit, and that when these are parted at death the person, the conscious, ego, ceases to exist until the two parts are reunited m resurrection. But if the conscious personality has ceased to exist, it is extremely difficult to conceive that it is the identical conscious person that comes into existence again. Would it not rather be a new personality that comes into being at resurrection? How can continuity of personality persist during non‑existence, and how, then, shall this new man be held morally responsible for the deeds of that former person, and be righteously liable to judgment therefor?
Moreover, this would involve (what indeed we have heard asserted) a disintegration of the person of the Man, Christ Jesus, between His death and resurrection. According to the theory, during that period His humanity was non‑existent. So that whilst the Son of God existed, Christ did not until resurrection. This is fatal heresy, and alone forbids the doctrine in question. The alternative must be for the annihilationist to adopt the first mentioned view, that personality attaches to the spirit, as others of that school do. But if it be, that the soul is the person, and that after death the soul has its own separate existence, then the whole assertion fails.
Inasmuch therefore as most serious issues are involved, this inquiry is of great practical importance. Indeed. it may be said that many most interesting and profitable themes can only be understood aright by a right understanding of our question ‑ Soul or Spirit, Which is the Man?
It must here be remarked that this theme, like all such profounder topics of the Word of God, cannot be studied in the English Authorised Version. It is not possible, on account of the deliberate irregularity in translation used by the Translators so as to secure pleasing English. We quote here generally the English Revised Version, and sometimes the New Translation of J. N. Darby (Morrish, London). This, one of the earliest individual translations, remains, in our opinion, by far the most helpful of all such.