Job 14:14 If a man die, shall he live again? all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come. Man's mind is something essentially different from his body, and that, therefore, the death of the body does not imply the destruction of the mind. There are those who are materialists. They hold that there is nothing in existence but matter. Mind they regard as a function of the brain. If this were so, some serious consequences would follow. 1. Man would then be only a machine. There would be no specific difference between him and the brutes. The brain certainly is the organ of the mind; but physical science has left unexplained the nature and origin of our mental and moral being. There is yet a great chasm between dead and living matter. Scientists cannot prove that dead matter can originate life. In consciousness there is nothing common with matter. A thought cannot be weighed and measured; nor can love; nor can our power of will. What has materialism to say to conscience? Materialism cannot account for man's mental, moral, and religious nature. Mind is not secreted by the brain, but is an entity distinct from it, and immaterial. This does not prove the soul immortal, but it turns aside one argument of those who would prove that the soul is not immortal. 2. In the moral government of the world there are such inequalities that there must be a future state of conscious existence in which these inequalities will be rectified. Do we see in the world an absolutely perfect system of rewards and punishments? Does every man receive in this life his deserts? It is true that the way of transgressors is hard, and that godliness is profitable for the life that now is. It is inseparable from any proper conception of God, that His righteousness rules the world. We may ,be sure that He will complete His plan; and in His perfected work He will vindicate His righteousness, and show that all His ways are equal. 3. The soul's capacities and aspirations are such as point to immortality. The lower animals are adapted to the place they occupy. Death rounds off their life, and is the natural termination of it, there is no indication of capacity for a higher life. It is otherwise with man. Look at man's power of gathering knowledge. There is no limit to man's power of acquiring, if only he had life. There is an indication of man's immortality in his natural and ineradicable yearning after it. That a man may desire some blessing is no proof that he is destined to obtain it; but in this case you must consider how this desire is inwrought into the very nerve and fibre of our spiritual being. We shrink appalled at the very thought of annihilation. God has made this desire of immortality part and parcel of our being. It is born with us, and grows with us. Then also, man is the only creature on earth that has risen to the knowledge of God, and has a nature leading to the worship of God. Nay, God is the want of the human soul. If man's conscious existence is to terminate with death, I can see no reason for these high endowments which lead him to know and worship God. 4. In the workings of the conscience we have prophetic fore-shadowings of immortality. Look at the prophetic action of conscience. It urges us to prepare for certain eventualities in the future. Conscience urges us to shun the wrong and to do the right, that it may be well with us hereafter. Take two classes of men — those who are upheld by their conscience, and those who are tormented by their conscience. We analyse their feelings and convictions, and find that those take hold on eternity, and look forward to judgment. The man who meets death to keep his conscience unstained, is impelled by a high moral instinct, which needs an eternal future to approve its wisdom and to vindicate its sacrifices. But when conscience is violated, the anguish it causes also points to the future. Conscience distinctly foreshadows a future life of conscious being. 5. The universality of the belief in immortality is an evidence of its truth. Among barbarous and civilised nations, everywhere, is found this belief in a future state of conscious existence. Bring these different arguments together. What is it that Jesus has done? Made known a future existence not known before? Nay; but brightened, or made clear what was imperfectly understood, and shown that only through Him can be obtained a glorious immortality. (A. Oliver, B. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: If a man die, shall he live again? all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come. |
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