Man’s Nature and Destiny

15 GATHERED TO HIS PEOPLE

THE pleasing doctrine that man can never die, though unfortunate in its parentage, is very tenacious of its life. In treating this subject in previous chapters, we have found that the record of man’s creation brings to view no immortal element as entering into his being; that the Bible, in its use of the terms “immortal” and “immortality,” never employs them to express an attribute inherent in man’s nature; that no description of soul and spirit, and no signification of the original words, will sustain the present popular definition of these terms; that the soul and spirit, though spoken of in the Bible, in the aggregate, seventeen hundred times, are never once said to be immortal, or never-dying; and that no text in which these words are supposed to be employed in such a manner as to show that they signify an ever-conscious, immortal principle, can possibly be interpreted to sustain such a doctrine. MND 109.1

Yet the dogma of natural immortality very reluctantly yields the ground. To a twentieth prooftext it will cling even the more tenaciously, if the preceding nineteen are all swept away. Besides the texts already noticed, there are a few other passages behind which it seeks refuge; and with alacrity we follow it into all its hiding-places, confident that in no passage in all the Bible can it find a shelter, but that into every one which it claims as its own, it has entered, not by right of possession, but as an intruder and a usurper, and a short and speedy process of eviction can be scripturally served upon it in every place. MND 109.2

Behind the obituaries of the patriarchs it seeks to shield itself. It is claimed, for instance, that the death of Abraham is recorded in such a manner as to show that his conscious existence did not cease with his earthly life. We may justly insist on their going further back, and taking the recorded close of the lives of the antediluvian patriarchs as the basis of their argument. One of these, Enoch, was translated to heaven without seeing death; and all the others, according to popular belief, went to heaven just as effectually, through death. But how different is their record! Of Enoch it is said, that he “was not; for God took him;” while of the others it is said. And they “died.” Surely these two records do not mean the same thing, and Enoch, whom God took, and who is consequently alive in heaven, must be, judging from the record, in a different condition from those who died. MND 110.1

But to return to the case of Abraham. The record of his death reads: “Then Abraham gave up ghost, and died in a good old age, an old man and full of years, and was gathered to his people.” On this verse, Landis (p.l30) thus remarks:- MND 110.2

“What then, is this gathering? Does it refer to the body or the soul? It cannot refer to the body, for while his body was buried in the cave of Machpelah, in Canaan, his fathers were buried afar off; Terah, in Haran, in Mesopotamia, and the rest of his ancestors far off in Chaldea. Of course, then, this gathering relates, not to the body, but to the soul; he was gathered to the assembly of the blessed, and thus entered his habitation.” MND 110.3

To show how gratuitous, not to say preposterous, is this conclusion, we raise a query on two points: MND 111.1

1. Does the expression, “gathered to his people,” denote that he went to dwell in conscious intercourse with them? 2. Were his ancestors such righteous persons that they went to heaven when they died? In answering these queries, the last shall be the first. It is a significant fact that Abraham had to be separated from his kindred and his father’s house, in order that God might make him a special subject of his providence. And in Joshua 24:2 we are plainly told that his ancestors were idolaters; for they served other gods. Such being their character, death would send them, according to the popular view, to the regions of the damned. At the time, then, of Abraham’s death, they were writhing amid the lurid waves of the lake of fire. And when Abraham was gathered to them, if it was in the sense which the theology of our day teaches, he, too, was consigned to the flames of hell! Oh! to what absurdities will men suffer themselves to be led blindfold by a petted theory. God had said to Abraham (Genesis 15:15): “And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age.” Was this the consoling promise that he should go to hell in peace in a good old age? And is the record of his death an assertion that he has his place among the damned?!- Yes; if the immaterialist theory is correct. Children of Abraham, arise! and with one mouth vindicate your “righteous father” from the foul aspersion. Renounce a theory as far from heaven-born, which compels you thus to look upon the “father of the faithful.” MND 111.2

Does, then, the expression, “gathered to his people,” mean his personal, conscious intercourse with them? If man has an immortal soul which lives in death, it does; and if it does, Abraham is in hell. There is no way of avoiding this conclusion, except by repudiating the idea that man has such a soul, and denying his conscious happiness or misery while in a state of death. MND 111.3

But how, then, could he be gathered to his people? Answer: He could go into the grave into which they had gone, into the state of death in which they were held. Jacob said, when mourning for Joseph, whom he supposed dead: “I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning.”- not that he expected to go into the same locality, or the same grave; for he did not suppose that his son, being, as he then thought, devoured by wild beasts, was in the grave literally at all; but by the grave he evidently meant a state of death; and as his son had been violently deprived of life, he too would go down mourning into the state of death; and this he calls going unto his son. In Acts 13:36 Paul, speaking of David, says that he “was laid unto his fathers.” This all must acknowledge to be the exact equivalent of being “gathered to his people;” then the apostle goes on and adds, “and saw corruption.” That which was laid unto his fathers,or was gathered to his people, saw corruption. Men may labor, if they choose, to refer it to the immortal soul; but in that way they do it a very doubtful favor; for the success of their argument is the destruction of their theory; and the soul is shown to be something which is perishable and corruptible in its nature. MND 112.1

The peaceful death of our father Abraham furnishes no proof of an immortal soul in man, and from his hallowed resting-place no arguments for such a dogma can be drawn. MND 112.2

Another text may properly be considered in this connection:- MND 112.3

Psalm 90:10: “The days of our years are three-score years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be four score years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.” MND 113.1

On the authority of this text it is claimed that something flies away when our strength is cut off in death; that something is the immortal soul, and that if it flies away, it is therefore conscious; and if it thus survives the stroke of death, it is therefore immortal: rather a numerous array of conclusions, and rather weighty ones, to be drawn from the three words, “we fly away.” Let us look at David’s argument. The reason given why our strength is labor and sorrow, is because it is soon cut off, and we fly away. If, now, our flying away means the going away of a conscious soul, into heaven, for instance, if we are righteous, his argument stands thus: “yet is their strength labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we go to heaven.” MND 113.2

Singular reasoning, this! But his argument is all consistent if by flying away he means that we go into the grave, where Solomon assures us that there is no work, wisdom, knowledge, nor device. Let us not abuse the psalmist’s reasoning. MND 113.3

The text plainly tells us what flies away; namely, we is a personal pronoun, and includes the whole person. According to Buck’s assertion that man is composed of two essential elements, soul and body, the man is not complete without them both; and the pronoun we could not be used to express either of them separately. The text does not intimate any separation; it does not say that the soul flies away, or that the spirit flies way; but we, in our undivided personality, fly away. To what place does the body, an essential part of the “we,” fly?- To the grave, and there only. MND 113.4

This is confirmed by Ecclesiastes 9:3: “The heart of the sons of men is full of evil; and madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead.” Had this text read, “And after that they go away,” it would have been exactly parallel to Psalm 90:10; for no essential difference can be claimed between going and flying. But here it is expressly told where we go: we go to the grave. What is omitted in Psalm 90:10, is here supplied. MND 114.1

We may also add that the Hebrew word gooph, rendered “fly away,” signifies, according to Gesenius, “First, to cover, spec. with wings, feathers, as birds cover their young; secondly, to fly, properly of birds; thirdly, to cover over, wrap in darkness’ fourthly, to overcome with darkness, to faint away.” MND 114.2

The idea is plainly this: Though our days be fourscore years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we sink away, go to the grave, and are wrapped in the darkness of death. Viewed thus, David’s language is consistent, and his reasoning harmonious; but his language we pervert, and his logic we destroy, the moment we try to make his words prove the separation from the body of a conscious soul at death. MND 114.3