Mortal or Immortal? Which?

RECAPITULATION

Let us collect and note the conclusions to which the foregoing investigation has led us. We have found, MOI 107.2

1. That man was not endowed in his creation with any inherent immortal principle; that immortality and eternal existence are never predicated of either the soul or spirit irrespective of character. MOI 107.3

2. That there is no inspired description of man in death, which represents him as a compound being surviving the dissolution of the body; but that the whole man is reduced to unconsciousness, and thus sleeps till the voice of Omnipotence shall bring him up again from the grave. MOI 107.4

3, That the resurrection is affirmed of the whole race. MOI 107.5

4. That the expressions used to describe the punishment of the wicked which then takes place, viz., the smoke of their torment ascending up forever and ever, everlasting and unquenchable fire, and a never-dying worm, were not such terms as would convey the idea of an eternity of existence to those who heard them; but on the contrary, according to the usus loquendi of the age in which they were spoken, they would denote the most utter and complete destruction of all the objects to which they were applied. MOI 107.6

5. That eternal life is suspended upon conditions, and can never be obtained except through compliance with those conditions; that incorruption and immortality are yet to be put on, but not till the resurrection, 1 Corinthians 15:53, 54; that they are to be obtained only through Christ, and consequently that all who are out of him will never receive them, but must on the other hand “reap corruption,” Galatians 6:8, die, be slain, be consumed, be destroyed, perish, be rooted out of the land of the living, be burnt up as withered branches, dried thorns, chaff and stubble, be ashes under the saints’ feet, and reach a state which so far as a conscious existence is concerned, will be absolutely as though they had never been. MOI 107.7

And we hesitate not to affirm with the utmost assurance, that in all those conclusions both reason and revelation stand fully with us. MOI 107.8

Are you then ready to inquire how it is that the doctrine of the soul’s immortality has come to be so generally received! We will tell you: It has been taken for granted! Says Bishop Tillotson, “The immortality of the soul is rather supposed or taken for granted, than expressly revealed in the Bible.” ¹ “It is taken for granted” that immortality is an essential attribute of the soul, and that therefore for the Bible to affirm it would be mere tautology. But we reply, Is not immortality an essential attribute also of Jehovah? Yet the Bible has been tautological enough to plainly state this fact. And it would seem that it might have carried its “tautology” a little further, and told us as much, at least once, about the soul, if that too was immortal; for surely its immortality cannot be more essential than that of Jehovah. MOI 108.1