The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2

I. Clear-cut Stand on the Sleep of the Soul

1. PROPHETIC DEPICTION OF PAPAL PERVERSIONS

Tyndale was a keen student of prophecy, holding the pope to be the Antichrist depicted in Revelation 13 and 17, in Daniel 7 and 8, and in the Epistles of Paul. The Antichrist had perverted the gospel and changed the ordinances of God, ⁴ and perverted Bible truth on the nature of man. Somewhere, sometime, Tyndale had fallen under the spell of Luther’s lofty scorn of the papal decretals on natural immortality and Purgatory and the attendant impostures and excesses of the day, ⁵ and had come to similar conclusions. CFF2 93.2

It is significant that the two men—Luther and Tyndale—who spearheaded the Reformation in Germany and in England by translating the Bible into the vernacular of their respective peoples, should both be thus led to detect this distinctive Roman departure on the nature of man and the sleep of the soul, along with related Catholic innovations, both going on record against the Platonic philosophy that had established itself in Roman theology. CFF2 93.3

2. DEPARTED SOULS NOT IN HEAVEN, HELL, OR PURGATORY

Sir Thomas More, it will be recalled, had objected to Luther’s doctrine that “all souls die and sleep till dooms-day,” and strongly objected to the “pestilential sect” represented by Luther and Tyndale. If such had not been Luther’s teaching, Tyndale would surely have denied it. But instead, Tyndale, in his Answer to Sir Thomas More’s Dialogue, rose to its vigorous defense as the doctrine not only of Luther but of the Bible. Here is the record: CFF2 94.1

“And ye, in putting them [departed souls] in heaven, hell, and purgatory, destroy the arguments wherewith Christ and Paul prove the resurrection. What God doth with them, that shall we know when we come to them. The true faith putteth the resurrection, which we be warned to look for every hour. The heathen philosophers, denying that, did put that the souls did ever live. And the pope joineth the spiritual doctrine of Christ and the fleshly doctrine of philosophers together; things so contrary that they cannot agree, no more than the Spirit and the flesh do in a christian man. And because the fleshly-minded pope consenteth unto heathen doctrine, therefore he corrupteth the scripture to stablish it .... And again, if the souls be in heaven, tell me why they be not in as good case as the angels be? And then what cause is there of the resurrection?” ⁶ CFF2 94.2

3. INNATE IMMORTALITY FROM PAGANISM AND POPERY

This clearly shows that Tyndale did not believe that souls go to heaven at death, but that they sleep till the resurrection. He argues logically that the opposite doctrine destroys the resurrection. He also agrees with Luther, and goes to the heart of the issue in asserting that the Innate Immortality of the soul is a “popish” doctrine borrowed from “heathen philosophers.” Tyndale then quotes More as saying chidingly: CFF2 94.3

“What shall he care how long he live in sin, that believeth Luther, that he shall after this life feel neither good nor evil, in body nor soul, until the day of doom?” ⁷ CFF2 94.4

To this Tyndale answers pointedly: “Christ and his apostles taught no other; but warned to look for Christ’s coming again every hour: which coming again because ye believe will never be, therefore ye have feigned that other merchandise.” ⁸ CFF2 94.5

4. “SAINTS IN HEAVEN” DESTROYS RESURRECTION ARGUMENT

Tyndale not only denied Purgatory but held that neither the Virgin nor the saints were able to intercede for humankind. He insisted that doctrine should be established on Holy Scripture alone, not on human tradition. Thus, in meeting More’s contention that we should pray to the saints who are alive in heaven and can help, Tyndale makes the charge that such a doctrine contradicts the explicit teaching of Christ: CFF2 95.1

“And when he [More] proveth that the saints be in heaven in glory with Christ already, saying, ‘If God be their God, they be in heaven, for he is not the God of the dead;’ there he stealeth away Christ’s argument, wherewith he proveth the resurrection: that Abraham and all saints should rise again, and not that their souls were in heaven; which doctrine was not yet in the world. And with that doctrine he taketh away the resurrection quite, and maketh Christ’s argument of none effect. For when Christ allegeth the scripture, that God is Abraham’s God, and addeth to, that God is not God of the dead but of the living, and so proveth that Abraham must rise again; I deny Christ’s argument, and I say with M. More, that Abraham is yet alive, not because of the resurrection, but because his soul is in heaven.” ⁹ CFF2 95.2

5. DOES “MASTER MORE” KNOW MORE THAN PAUL?

Tyndale presses his contention still further by showing the conflict of papal teaching with that of St. Paul, phrasing it in somewhat sarcastic vein: CFF2 95.3

“And in like manner, Paul’s argument unto the Corinthians is nought worth: for when he saith, ‘If there be no resurrection, we be of all wretches the miserablest; here we have no pleasure, but sorrow, care, and oppression; and therefore, if we rise not again, all our suffering is in vain:’ ‘Nay, Paul, thou art unlearned; go to Master More, and learn a new way. We be not most miserable, though we rise not again; for our souls go to heaven as soon as we be dead, and are there in as great joy as Christ that is risen again.’ And I marvel that Paul had not comforted the Thessalonians with that doctrine, if he had wist it, that the souls of their dead had been in joy; as he did with the resurrection, that their dead should rise again. If the souls be in heaven, in as great glory as the angels, after your doctrine, shew me what cause should be of the resurrection?” ¹⁰ CFF2 95.4

Picture 1: Tyndale, More, Frith
Left: William Tyndale (d. 1536), Greatest of English Reformers—Departed Souls Not in Heaven, Purgatory, or Hell.
Center: Sir Thomas More (d. 1535), Catholic Chancellor of England—Attacks Conditionalist Positions of Luther and Tyndale.
Right: John Frith (d. 1533), Tyndale’s “Son in the Gospel”—Martyred of Denying Consciousness in Purgatory.
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Such was the clear witness of the first English Reformer upon the nature of man. CFF2 96.1