October 11, 1898.
Dear brother Potter:
I have read with interest the book you sent me — “Was Moses Wrong?” — and am glad to have had the reading of it, and I thank you for the book....
His remarks on inspiration are very good, and his expose of evolution is really excellent. There are a good many minor points one might criticize, but most of them are not material, until it comes to the question of death, and here I do not feel that I can follow him in his reasonings and conclusions. There is much that is true, no doubt, but I think he has a theory that will scarcely stand comparison with the Word. He makes some very good remarks as to annihilation but his theory in meeting it I do not think is sound. He makes, if I understand him, both death and destruction to be a process. Now I believe each of these terms expresses a state rather than a process. Everlasting destruction he makes to be a process in which the wicked are everlastingly being destroyed, or undergoing a process of destruction. See pages 141 and 158. I do not think this is the meaning of Scripture. He tries to prove, or rather assumes that destruction is a process, and then reasons, that if this process came to an end, the word “everlasting” could not be applied to it. Quite so, but I take destruction to be the state of utter ruin in which the creature will be placed by the judgment of the Lord because of sin, when He takes vengeance. And this state of utter and irretrievable ruin (not annihilation), will be eternal — a state of hopeless and eternal misery — ruin from which there is no recovery.
While he makes some good points as to annihilation, 1 don’t know if he does not weaken his cause somewhat by making too light of the word. If the doctrine were true, I think the word could be used with good enough sense. An annihilationist does not mean that the material elements of which a human being is composed cease to exist. But the man as a man, when destroyed, has no more existence as a man — the man is annihilated — has no more existence as such. Of course we know the doctrine is utterly false, but I do not think you can annihilate the doctrine by annihilating the word annihilation!
Now as to death (and this is the most important), as I understand him he makes it a process, and that when the process has come to an end, as in the death of the body, death is no longer there. In connection with spiritual and eternal death, he uses the word state in a way, but his main point is that it is a process, and eternal death is simply a process in which spiritual death is continued — “people remaining forever depraved and developing naturally toward deeper depravity.” Now I cannot but think this is simply a human theory not in accord with Scripture, a theory too, which does not comprehend the awfulness of what death is under the judgment of God. In Scripture I believe we have, (1) the death of the body, (2) spiritual death, and (3) eternal death, or “the second death.” The two former are immediately connected with the fall, and the last is connected with God’s judgment on the unrepentant in a future day. Spiritual death will no doubt continue in eternity, but the second death is more than that — not men pursuing “their favorite vices” with “unbridled swing” — a very evil thought as it seems to me — but men in the most awfully helpless condition shut up in outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth — shut up in endless despair in a region outside the display of the glory of God’s power, this world passed away from them forever, and the lust of it which they once enjoyed, passed away too, and Satan shut up with them, and as helpless as the most helpless, his career ended, and their career ended, too, in the hopeless misery of “everlasting fire.” This, I believe is weakened by Mr. Denovan’s theory.
If you examine Scripture, I think you will see that the death of the body is generally viewed as that which comes in at the end of the present life — a state resulting from the extinction of the animal life. See Job 3:2121Which long for death, but it cometh not; and dig for it more than for hid treasures; (Job 3:21); Psa. 89:4848What man is he that liveth, and shall not see death? shall he deliver his soul from the hand of the grave? Selah. (Psalm 89:48); Eccl. 8:8; 9:58There is no man that hath power over the spirit to retain the spirit; neither hath he power in the day of death: and there is no discharge in that war; neither shall wickedness deliver those that are given to it. (Ecclesiastes 8:8)
5For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. (Ecclesiastes 9:5); Rev. 9:6; 20:136And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them. (Revelation 9:6)
13And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. (Revelation 20:13). I take it to be the state in which the soul and the body are separated, when the body is dissolved — goes to dust. A process goes on which leads to this, but is not the process the working of sin which ends in death? See Romans 8:13; 6:2313For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. (Romans 8:13)
23For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 6:23). The only difficulty I think of is connected with Gen. 2:1717But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. (Genesis 2:17), “in the day.” But does this mean more than this: the moment he ate of the fruit, death became a certain result — he was, as we say, a dead man, or as Mr. Denovan puts it — forensically dead, or as we would say of a man who had swallowed a large dose of poison, he is a dead man, although all the struggles to resist the consequences are yet to be gone through with. I think Gen. 3:1919In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. (Genesis 3:19) would indicate that the simple external thing was the dissolution of the body. Of course there was a deeper question — spiritual death — but that was not on the surface. Is not the death of the body, its ceasing to exist in living relationship with the soul? Is not spiritual death the soul ceasing to exist in conscious and living relationship with God? And is not eternal, or the second death, man, soul and body, excluded from God and shut up in outer darkness, in hopeless despair, where the hope of returning to a state in which he can be in relationship with God is lost forever? The thought of separation is prominent — separation of soul and body — separation of the soul from relationship with God — eternal separation from God — and all this under His judgment because of sin.
I have but touched on these points. They might be gone into much more fully.... I do not think Mr. D. is sufficiently clear or guarded on the subject of temptation either. God does not tempt men. He proves or tries them, and causes them to pass through needed trials, but He does not tempt — does not seek to induce men to do what is wrong. He permits Satan to do this, where there is a need, or where it will result in good, but that is a very different thing, and all is under His own eye, so that it can only turn for blessing, and for His own glory. I do not think Mr. D. allows for sufficient distinction between the words “tempt” and “try,” though I am aware that there is only one word in the Greek for both.
But there is much in the book that one can be very thankful for. Only it is unfortunate that he is not clearer on the points referred to. I have not called attention to all the points I noticed, but I think these are the principal ones.
Affectionately in Christ,
P. S. I was just thinking of the expression, “the second death,” as a kind of intimation that only one other precedes it, which evidently refers principally to the death of the body, though this cannot be separated from the spiritual condition brought in by the first transgression. But the spiritual state of death spoken of in Ephesians 2:11And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; (Ephesians 2:1), and elsewhere, is evidently not the primary use of the term death, though involved in it. The spiritual state is a state brought to light in the history of God’s ways and dealings with man, although what is thus brought to light existed the moment man fell — “in the day” he ate of the forbidden tree. And it may be because this spiritual state is in question, that it is said “In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”...