The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 1
IV. Immortality Conferred on Righteous; Destruction Is Fate of Wicked
Assuring Autolycus that the eyes of the soul must be purged in order to see God and understand light, Theophilus presents the incomparable nature and attributes of God—the “father of the righteous” and “judge and punisher of the impious.” 16 God, who established the earth, sustains the universe, and gives light to those who are in darkness, is “without beginning,” and is “unchangeable” and “immortal.” He is the “Fashioner and Maker” of all things, “because He is the creator and maker of the universe.” 17 Chapter six is headed “God Is Known by His Works,” in the heavens and on the earth. That is the preamble. CFF1 842.1
1. MORTALITY “PUT OFF”; IMMORTALITY “PUT ON.”
Coming directly to the immortality issue, chapter seven is titled, “We Shall See God When We Put On Immortality.” After portraying God’s creative power, whose “breath you breathe,” Theophilus appeals to Autolycus to “entrust yourself to the Physician,” who “heals and makes alive.” He then portrays the coming change of those who live “holily, and righteously,” from “mortality” to “immortality,” to take place when we shall see the Immortal One face to face. Here is Theophilus’ clear declaration: CFF1 842.2
“When thou shalt have put off the mortal, and put on incorruption, then shalt thou see God worthily. For God will raise thy flesh immortal with thy soul; and then, having become immortal, thou shalt see the Immortal, if you now believe on him.” 18 CFF1 843.1
This is, of course, at the resurrection and Second Advent. CFF1 843.2
2. “SEEK” IMMORTALITY; ESCAPE “ETERNAL PUNISHMENTS.”
Discussing the resurrection, Theophilus states pointedly, to Autolycus, “But you do not believe that the dead are raised.” And he adds, “When the resurrection shall take place, then you will believe, whether you will or no.” And he reminds Autolycus, “He created you out of nothing, and brought you into existence.” 19 Because “God is able to effect the general resurrection of all men,” 20 He is equally able to foretell “things future in the order in which they shall be accomplished.” CFF1 843.3
Theophilus then solemnly declares to his pagan friend, if you “continue unbelieving,” you will be convinced, though too late, when “tormented with eternal punishments,” which are likewise foretold by the prophets. Then he appeals to Autolycus to escape “the punishments that are to light upon the profane and unbelieving.” 21 He entreats: CFF1 843.4
“But do you also, if you please, give reverential attention to the prophetic Scriptures, and they will make your way plainer for escaping the eternal punishments, and obtaining the eternal prizes of God.” 22 CFF1 843.5
His reference is, of course, to immortality in Christ. CFF1 843.6
Theophilus then plainly declares that “to those who by patient continuance in well-doing seek immortality, He will give life everlasting, joy, peace, rest.” “But to the unbelieving and despisers,” he adds, “there shall be ... tribulation and anguish, and at the last everlasting fire shall possess [seize] such men.” 23 But he does not say endless punishing. Rather, the fire would make an end of the wicked, when once their retribution for sin was complete. Theophilus, it is to be borne in mind, places “everlasting punishment” along with the doctrine of nonimmortality of the soul, as did Justin. The true penalty for sin is final death, from which there is no return. Scholarly Frederick A. Freer makes a sound distinction between the “endless loss of life,” and the totally different “endless life of loss.” 24 And this was not a play on words but the statement of a profound truth. CFF1 843.7
3. PRESENTS FOUNDATIONAL BASES FOR FAITH
In book two, chapter four, Theophilus cites Plato as teaching that both God and matter are “uncreated” and “unalterable.” Therefore, if matter be uncreated and unalterable, it is “equal to God,” for “that which is created is mutable and alterable.” But Theophilus contends that “out of things that are not He creates and has created things that are.” 25 CFF1 844.1
In chapter nine (“The Prophets Inspired by the Holy Ghost”) Theophilus discusses the role of the prophet, declaring that the prophets were “God-taught,” and as “instruments of God” they not only declared the truth regarding “the creation of the world and all other things” but predicted things to come. And because they declared what happened before their day, and “what things are now being fulfilled in our own day: wherefore we are persuaded also concerning the future things that they will fall out, as also the first have been accomplished.” 26 CFF1 844.2
4. NATURE AND PERIL OF UNFALLEN MAN IN EDEN
The same inspired prophets declare that “God made all things out of nothing; for nothing is coeval with God.” 27 Creation week, and the work of each day, including the creation of man, are then presented in chapters eleven to seventeen, based on Genesis 1 and 2. In chapter eighteen “The Creation of Man” is set forth, and then man’s placement in Paradise (chapter nineteen), in which state “man became a living soul.” Because of this expression, Theophilus says, “By most persons the soul is called immortal.” 28 But this he discusses soon. The conditions of the saved in Paradise are presented in chapter twenty. CFF1 844.3
Next follows the Genesis account “Of the Fall of Man” (chapter twenty-one)—the Garden and its trees, and the tree of life, from which man was to eat. Provision was thus made for the preservation of life. Only of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was Adam commanded “not to taste.” Here in the Garden man was to perfect character, and to advance and come into “possession of immortality,” for, Theophilus adds, “man had been made a middle nature, neither wholly mortal, nor altogether immortal, but capable of either.” 29 CFF1 845.1
5. EXPELLED FROM EDEN LEST HE REMAIN IN SIN FOREVER
Paradise was therefore “intermediate between earth and heaven.” Only the observance of God’s command was required, “lest, disobeying, he should destroy himself, as indeed he did destroy himself, by sin.” 30 Then follows chapter twenty-five with its declaration that “for the first man, disobedience procured his expulsion from Paradise,” and, “from his disobedience did man draw, as from a fountain, labour, pain, grief, and at last fall a prey to death.” 31 He was not to live forever in sin. CFF1 845.2
6. RETURNS TO PARADISE AFTER RESURRECTION AND IMMORTALIZATION
In chapter twenty-six Theophilus plainly says, concerning man’s expulsion from Paradise, “God showed a great kindness to man in this, that He did not suffer him to remain in sin for ever,” but by “banishment, cast him out of Paradise,” afterward to be “restored.” But Paradise is twice portrayed, the first wherein man was initially placed, and the second, to which he will be restored “after the resurrection and judgment.” 32 Thus, like a potter’s vessel, man through a flaw became broken, and had to be made over. And he immediately adds that in the same way man “may rise in the resurrection whole; I mean spotless, and righteous, and immortal.” 33 CFF1 845.3
So in God’s call to Adam in Eden, “He gave him an opportunity of repentance and confession.” 34 Thus God provided the way to immortality. CFF1 846.1
7. IMMORTALITY A REWARD, NOT AN ORIGINAL POSSESSION
The short chapter twenty-seven, on “The Nature of Man,” is so vital to our quest that we quote it in entirety—simply breaking it into two sections. First, Theophilus deals with man’s nature at Creation, in which he repeats and emphasizes the thought of the sentence quoted from chapter twenty-four—“For man had been made ... neither wholly mortal, nor altogether immortal, but capable of either,” thus with alternative destinies open before him. CFF1 846.2
In this view he is followed by Irenaeus, Arnobius, Lactantius, and Nemesis, in the second, fourth, and sixth centuries. It is a recurring thought that God did not arbitrarily create man mortal or immortal, but capable of either, and thus a candidate for either, according to his choice and action. Theophilus here expands this thought: CFF1 846.3
“But some one will say to us, Was man made by nature mortal? Certainly not. Was he, then, immortal? Neither do we affirm this. But one will say, Was he, then, nothing? Not even this hits the mark. He was by nature neither mortal nor immortal. For if He had made him immortal from the beginning, He would have made him God [like]. Again, if He had made him mortal, God would seem to be the cause of his death. Neither, then, immortal nor yet mortal did He make him, but, as we have said above, capable of both; so that if he should incline to the things of immortality, keeping the commandment of God, he should receive as reward from Him immortality, and should become God [like]; 35 but if, on the other hand, he should turn to the things of death, disobeying God, he should himself be the cause of death to himself.” 36 CFF1 846.4
So according to Theophilus man was not created immortal, but immortable, or immortizable, as some phrase it. And immortality is a reward, not a natural right. CFF1 846.5
8. MAN CHOOSES EITHER EVERLASTING LIFE, OR DEATH
The second half of this little chapter deals with man’s freedom of the will, and his responsibility for his own fate—because of obedience and resultant life everlasting and incorruption, through the resurrection, or of disobedience and death. Because of disobedience man forfeited immortality. But in mercy God gave opportunity to acquire “life everlasting” through obedience to the gospel and the law of God. Theophilus continues: CFF1 847.1
“For God made man free, and with power over himself. That, then, which man brought upon himself through carelessness and disobedience, this God now vouchsafes to him as a gift through His own philanthropy and pity, when men obey Him. For as man, disobeying, drew death upon himself; so, obeying the will of God, he who desires is able to procure for himself life everlasting. For God has given us a law and holy commandments; and every one who keeps these can be saved, and, obtaining the resurrection, can inherit incorruption [“immortality”].” 37 CFF1 847.2
God therefore conferred upon man the supreme privilege of liberty, but liberty cannot exist without the necessity of choice—choice of life or death. An enforced immortality would nullify that divinely implanted freedom. CFF1 847.3
9. RIGHTEOUS TO ESCAPE ETERNAL PUNISHMENTS
Chapter twenty-eight touches on Eve’s tempter, Satan the serpent, the author of sin. He became” ‘demon’ and ‘dragon,’ on account of his ... revolting from God,” for at first Satan “was an angel.” 38 Theophilus then tells of the aftermath of man’s expulsion from Eden, revealed through “the holy prophets.” 39 He declares that God “did not abandon mankind, but gave a law, and sent holy prophets” to draw men back to God. And he adds that “he who acts righteously shall escape the eternal punishments, and be thought worthy of the eternal life from God.” 40 CFF1 847.4
10. WICKED CONSUMED IN FINAL CONFLAGRATION
He alludes, in chapter thirty-seven, to the principle that “evil-doers must necessarily be punished in proportion to their deeds,“ and then mentions the coming “conflagration of the world,” in accordance with the “testimony of the prophets.” 41 In chapter thirty-eight he adds: “Concerning the burning up of the world, Malachi the prophet foretold: ‘The day of the Lord cometh as a burning oven, and shall consume all the wicked.’” 42 CFF1 847.5
11. GOD’S CARE FOR THE DEAD
Theophilus states that the prophets, poets, and philosophers “have clearly taught both concerning righteousness, and judgment, and punishment, and also concerning providence, that God cares for us, not only for the living” but “also for those that are dead.” He cites Solomon’s allusion to God’s “care taken of thy bones,” and Hosea’s declaration, “The ways of the Lord are right.” 43 CFF1 848.1
That is the testimony of Theophilus. Book three adds little. Chapter seven alludes to Plato’s repeated assertions on “the unity of God and of the soul of man, asserting that the soul is immortal,” and to the great pagan philosopher’s inconsistency in holding to the transmigration of souls, in which “some souls pass into other men, and that others take their departure into irrational animals” (a “wolf, or a dog, or an ass”), calling such a teaching “dreadful and monstrous.” 44 But Bishop Theophilus is clear, consistent, and scriptural. CFF1 848.2