The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2

III. Companion Volume Becomes Conditionalist Classic

The position taken in his second major treatise, Hades; or, the Intermediate State of Man (1873)—dealing with the condition of man in death—Constable considered as basic to Conditionalism. Several editions indicated the deepening interest in the question. The popular false view of accentuated consciousness in death, of the immortal soul, Constable held to be the root of a “very large portion of the doctrinal error of the Church of Rome.” Moreover, “Upon it Spiritualism depends as the foundation of its falsehoods.” ⁴¹ It is similarly the justification of the theory of a second probation. But more than these, it neutralizes the very necessity and profit, to souls allegedly already in heaven, of the resurrection and the Second Advent. ⁴² Periodically throughout his work Constable cites such other Conditionalists as Courtenay, White, Hall, Perowne, and Heard in support of his own positions. CFF2 347.3

1. GENESIS ON TRUE RELATION OF BODY AND SOUL

All but the last four of the twenty-seven chapters in his 383-page book set forth the Biblical evidence for his contention. The last four are historical. The high lights, now noted in sequence, involve, first in chapter 1, the origin of man. Of this Constable logically declares:
“The Maker of man is the One who is best able to inform us as to the nature of the creature of His hands. One verse of the Bible on the nature of man, on the source of his life, on the meaning of his death, must outweigh a whole treatise of Plato, Aristotle, or Epicurus.” ⁴³ CFF2 348.1

Constable turns at once to the Genesis record, and stresses the “two distinct stages” in the creation of man: (1) “The organized body and figure in a lifeless state,” formed of the “dust of the ground,” but still “lifeless and thoughtless.” Yet he was called man “before he could think, or feel, or breathe,” which phenomena came “after the breath of life was breathed into him.” Thereafter man had spirit, and was a living soul, until bereft of the spirit, or breath, through death. Platonism, on the contrary, says that the real man is not dust, but soul, becoming united to a body—which union was evil. Hence death, dissolving that union, is a blessing. Under such a postulate “death was ... not a cessation of existence to man,” but a change of condition in life, to great betterment. Platonism permeated the church and has largely supplanted the Biblical view. These positions Constable buttresses by multiple Old and New Testament passages, including the declarations of Christ. ⁴⁴ CFF2 348.2

2. MAN IS ONE PERSON, NOT TWO

Constable contends, in chapter two (“Man One Person”), that man is “one person,“ not two—and is not a soul or spirit in a body, as Platonism contends. The Bible “persists in calling that body, when dead, the man.” Platonism, on the contrary, maintains the “absurdity of supposing that death has converted one person into two!” ⁴⁵ CFF2 348.3

But (in chapter three) it was through infusion of the “breath of life” that man became a “living soul.” The “lifeless figure becomes full of life. The inanimate frame becomes instinct with animation.” ⁴⁶ The “original man made of earth” was inbreathed with the “divine spirit, or breath of life,” and “as a consequence the original man becomes a living soul.” ⁴⁷ CFF2 349.1

But with the “withdrawal of the breath of life”— CFF2 349.2

“man is then no longer a living soul, but the lifeless figure he was at the first. He is dust, and dust only. He has not any longer spirit, and he is no longer living soul .... CFF2 349.3

“The organisation is destroyed: the figure crumbles into its essential dust. The death of man produced by the withdrawal of the spirit is followed by the destruction and disorganisation of his form and shape.” ⁴⁸ CFF2 349.4

3. RELATION OF BREATH OF LIFE TO IMMORTALITY

Chapter four (“The Breath of Life”) deals with the breath of life “breathed directly from God.” This breath of life or spark of life is “an attribute of God” Himself, for the “breath of the Almighty hath given me life” (Job 33:4; cf. Isaiah 42:5). But this breath is “only a gift to man”—“whose breath is in his nostrils” (Isaiah 2:22). “Life is dependent on its presence” (see Job 27:3), for when God gathers “unto himself his spirit and his breath; all flesh shall perish together, and man shall turn again unto the dust” (Job 34:14, 15). ⁴⁹ But this breath of life “does not of itself confer immortality upon that creature.” CFF2 349.5

The breath of life “is separable from the creature in whom it may reside,” and death results from the “separation” of this breath “from man.” ⁵⁰ And this “breath of life” is the “spirit of God,” as “his spirit and his breath” (Job 27:3; 34:14; Isaiah 42:5). So the breath of life is God’s “breath,” “given to man by his maker,” “proceeding from God” and “returning” to God when He pleases. It is “not the essential property of man, but the essential property of God.” So there is marked distinction between the soul and spirit of man. ⁵¹ CFF2 349.6

4. DISTINCTION BETWEEN SOUL AND SPIRIT

In chapter five (“The Spirit of Man”) Constable contrasts this divine provision with the teachings of Pantheism, which hold that “God is in everything” and “everything is God.” ⁵² He likewise emphasizes the “distinction of soul and spirit” as being “just as definite as the distinction of both from the body” (1 Thessalonians 5:23). ⁵³ CFF2 350.1

Then, in chapter six, he takes up the Greek term pneuma, corresponding to the Hebrew ruach, and shows that “spirit” and pneuma are identical. It is this “spirit” that is the “source of life to man,” for the “body without the spirit is dead” (James 2:26). Death is the yielding up of the spirit (Luke 23:46; Acts 7:59)—commended to the hand and safekeeping of God at death. And it is given “with a view to its restoration,” for the Christian parts with it to “receive it back for ever” at the resurrection. ⁵⁴ CFF2 350.2

5. SOUL DOES NOT SURVIVE THE BODY

Turning in chapter seven to the Hebrew nephesh, or “soul” of man, Constable says first that CFF2 350.3

“the soul of man is not a second entity, a second person, a second inner ethereal man existing within an outer and grosser man.” ⁵⁵ CFF2 350.4

And the soul is not itself immortal. The proper meaning is “life,” “animal life,” or “living person.” The soul can be killed (Leviticus 23:30; Joshua 10:28, 30, 39). The soul goes to the grave (Job 33:22). ⁵⁶ The soul dies at the death of man. CFF2 350.5

“It does not survive the body: both together cease to exist, to live together again when the spirit of life re-enters the body and reproduces the soul within it.” ⁵⁷ CFF2 351.1

And in death the soul is in the grave—she’ol (Heb.), or hades (Gr.). Constable again points out that the “inbreathing of the breath of life,” “which produced within man his soul,” “made him become a living soul.” “Soul had no existence in man until the spirit entered into him.” So the existence of the soul, produced by the presence of the spirit, must always depend upon the presence of the spirit (Psalm 146:4). It is a case of “cause and effect.” So at death the soul goes to hades, while the spirit goes back to God. ⁵⁸ That is the Biblical portrayal. CFF2 351.2

6. GRAVEDOM: STATE OF PROFOUND UNCONSCIOUS SLEEP

Constable turns, in chapters nine and ten, to the Greek hades and Hebrew she’ol, which alike mean the grave, the “place of death,” ⁵⁹ or gravedom—hades and death being regarded as synonyms—“the land of the shadow of death,” from which the resurrection is the only redemption. ⁶⁰ Hades is the state of “profound sleep, of utter insensibility,” ⁶² where the dead await the glorious Second Advent. Hades is therefore “identical with the grave.” The soul has not “gone to heaven” at death. Thus “David is not ascended into the heavens (Acts 2:34).” At death the soul of Christ went into the grave, or hades (Acts 2:31). The risen and ascended Christ has the “keys of hades and of death (Revelation 1:18),” and at His return “death and hades delivered up the dead which were in them (Revelation 20:13).” CFF2 351.3

7. DEATH ETERNAL, EXCEPT FOR RESURRECTION

Turning next to “death” (chapter eleven), Constable asserts that the sentence of death passed upon all men is real. It would be “eternal” had no deliverance been provided through Christ. ⁶⁵ On the day Adam sinned he fell under the sentence of death. And death remains “in force until their [people of God] resurrection to eternal life.” ⁶⁶ So death visits every person, irrespective of his character, and reigns in full power until the spirit of life is restored. ⁶⁷ Consequently, life and death are “opposite states” (chapter sixteen), with life terminated by death, and death broken by resurrection. ⁶⁹ Then in chapter seventeen (“The Resurrection”) Constable says unequivocally: “Without resurrection there would be no future life of any kind for the believer at all.” CFF2 351.4

That was the hope of the church. So he says: “Viewed in the light of resurrection, death and destruction become a sleep, because at a coming day their power and sway will be broken for ever.” ⁷⁰ CFF2 352.1

8. NO PERCEPTION OF TIME IN DEATH SLEEP

The sleep of death (chapter eighteen, “Time and Sleep”) is not a “gloomy” view, for the “deep, unbroken sleep” of death “has no perceptible duration. Time, to the sleeper, is nothing.” “When he awakes, it seems as though but only a moment before he had gone asleep.” ⁷¹ “There is no interval whatever,” he quotes approvingly from Whately. “The moment of closing his eyes in death will be instantly succeeded by the sound of the last trumpet .... The dead cannot note the progress of time, and therefore it does not exist for them.” ⁷² CFF2 352.2

Thus the “sole hope placed before the mind of the Church” is the Second Advent and its attendant resurrection. ⁷³ Moreover, this places the Second Advent, in relation to the sleeping saints, “as near to every individual and every generation of the Church as it is to any other.” ⁷⁴ Thus:
“Instead of this view putting a long blank space between the believer’s death and resurrection, it practically obliterates the actual space that intervenes .... He sleeps—he wakes up from sleep—this is his experience.” ⁷⁵ CFF2 352.3

9. TIME ANNIHILATED TO THOSE WHO SLEEP

Constable stresses this point: “To him who sleeps, time is annihilated. To him who sleeps, a century is as short as a moment; ten centuries as short as the twinkling of an eye. To the sleeper, to be at home in the body is to be absent from the Lord—to depart is to be with Christ—to die is to rise again—to sleep is to awake—to lay aside the corruptible body is to put on the incorruptible body—to lay aside the earthly house of this tabernacle is to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven; for between the time that he sleeps and the time that he awakes, between the time of his death and of his resurrection, is to him a briefer period than would elapse while an angel winged his way from earth to heaven.” ⁷⁶ CFF2 352.4

For both good and evil the death period is “alike, a blank.” The “twilight of its departure is at once succeeded by eternal day, or the sentence to everlasting night.” ⁷⁷ CFF2 353.1

10. EARLY EPITAPHS ATTEST “SLEEP,” AWAITING RESURRECTION

After effectively answering problem passages from the Old and New Testaments (chapters twenty to twenty-three)—namely, the witch of Endor, Dives and Lazarus, the penitent thief, and Paul’s desire to depart—showing them to be actually in harmony with the principles of Conditionalism—Constable turns to the historical Apostles’ Creed and the Ancient Epitaphs, in contrast with most modern anti-Biblical epitaphs. ⁷⁸ CFF2 353.2

The Early Church recognized the grave as the place of sleep, the temporary resting place of the redeemed. They sleep, but only for a while. ⁷⁹ There is nothing of death as a “state of glory,” no confusion of death with life. Their epitaphs were in sharp contrast with the hopeless pagan epitaphs—and many modern Christian inscriptions. ⁸⁰ The early Christians slept “in peace”; they rested in “peace” and “hope.” Later (c. 400), the resurrection note disappears; they “live with God.” The “glorified condition” ⁸¹ of the dead takes the place of the earlier Biblical sentiments. The change has come. CFF2 353.3

11. “APOSTOLIC FATHERS” WERE CONDITIONALISTS

We are “never for one moment to set aside the plain teaching of Scripture in deference to any or all of them,” ⁸² nevertheless it is helpful to know the Early Church teachings. Of this Constable says:
“If then we can find the Apostolic Fathers agreeing with our view, that in death the entire man dies, and that Hades is the land of death, we may be perfectly certain that such was their real opinion.” ⁸³ CFF2 353.4

Constable surveys Clement, Polycarp, Barnabas, Ignatius, Hermas, and Clement of Rome, and shows they taught that the saints were “asleep during the state of death,” waiting for the resurrection as their hope. They were to “awake” from the sleep of death when “raised from the grave at resurrection.” ⁸⁴ It is “a blank of sleep to interpose between the believer’s life here and his life hereafter.” ⁸⁵ So the intermediate state is “a state of death for man, not one of life,” awaiting the “second coming of the Lord, and the resurrection of the dead.” ⁸⁶ CFF2 354.1

Such is the substance of Constable’s Hades; or, the Intermediate State. It is a Conditionalist classic, exerting a molding influence out to the ends of the earth, and widely quoted in succeeding decades. CFF2 354.2