The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2

IV. Remarkable Scope of Ground Covered

Waller’s Biblical View of the Soul is divided into five parts: (1) The Biblical View of Soul, with appropriate subdivisions; (2) The Biblical View of Sheol (Hades, Infernus, Inf erus-The Place of the Dead, or Gravedom); (3) The Biblical View of Spirit; (4) The Biblical View of the Mortality of Man; and (5) A Summary. Part I includes the “Mortality of the Soul” and “Subject to Death.” Part II is on where “Nephesh Goes After Death,” and “The Place of the Dead or Gravedom.” Part IV deals with “The Mortality of Man.” And Part V presents The Summary, stressing “The Resurrection of the Dead, the Great Central Hope of the Christian Church.” Now let us continue. CFF2 775.2

1. ALL FACULTIES AND POWERS CEASE AT DEATH

Let us now note a series of illustrative excerpts. For instance, under man as a person, or living organism, Waller says that in death all the faculties and powers of mind and body cease to function. No separate entity persists: CFF2 775.3

“In the following twenty-two places in the Old Testament Scriptures, where the Hebrew word Nephesh occurs, it is translated in the English Authorised Version by the word soul; and has reference to a living material Organism or body, possessed of the faculties and powers of mind and body, as existing in a living person or man, which God threatens to cut off, or destroy by death; when all the faculties and powers of mind and body heretofore exercised through the brain, blood, nerves, and senses of the living material Organism or body naturally cease, and the whole material Organism or body, deprived of life, returns to dust and corruption.” ¹⁵ CFF2 775.4

Man, he states, “is capable of death or destruction, unless saved or delivered, and is therefore clearly mortal, being subject to death.” ¹⁶ CFF2 776.1

2. TOTAL UNCONSCIOUSNESS IN “GRAVEDOM.”

Uriconsciousness in death is set forth under “The Place of the Dead, Gravedom.” After listing and quoting the sixty-five occurrences of Sheol and Hades, with their Latin equivalent In f ernus, Waller comments: CFF2 776.2

“From the above translations it is clear that Sheol and Hades, Infernus and Inferus, to which the soul and body are said to go after death, is not a place of life or of consciousness, of happiness or misery, but of darkness and death; it is said to be in the dust, with the worms under and covering those in it, where death feeds on those who are there; a place of silence, in which there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, no remembrance of God, no power of praising God, or hoping for his truth; What can this place be but gravedom, as it is so frequently translated, the grave? and what can hell [sheol] of the Old Testament be but the hole or grave in which the dead are buried?” ¹⁷ CFF2 776.3

3. FIRES OF “GEHENNA” ONLY AFTER RESURRECTION

Coming to the contrasting Gehenna (hell-fire, hell), he tersely observes: “It [Gehenna] is described as the place into which the impenitent will be cast body and soul, in a living state, after the Resurrection.” ¹⁸ CFF2 776.4

But Waller’s main emphasis is not on the fate of the wicked, but on that of the righteous. He occasionally quotes from authorities like Bishop B. F. Westcott (d. 1901), formerly professor of divinity at the University of Cambridge, as on pages 41 and 42. CFF2 776.5

4. AS ALL POWERS CEASE, SO ALL POWERS RESTORED

In a prefatory statement on the Hebrew word ruach, for wind, breath, spirit, and the Greek, Latin, and English equivalents, Waller states: CFF2 777.1

“As, then, under the word Soul in the former part of this work it has been shown that every Being in a living Organism or body is possessed more or less of the powers of Breathing, Thinking, Moving, through living powers inherent in that Organism or body, so it is reasonable to conclude that when that Organism or body is deprived of life all these powers should cease, till, as in the case of Man, he is raised again, as all the dead, according to the teaching of Scripture, will be raised again, at the Resurrection, at the last day. Nor is there in any of the 1,143 places where the words Soul and Spirit are used in the Old Testament Scriptures, nor in the 491 places where the words Soul and Spirit are used in the New Testament, any reference to their existence or to their happiness or misery, in any Intermediate State, outside of a living Organism or body, as will be more fully referred to in Part IV. (see page 65).” ¹⁹ CFF2 777.2

“Man goes to death for want of breath, and he rises to life, by God imparting breath to the organism recreated.” ²⁰ CFF2 777.3

5. INNATE IMMORTALITY OF ‘HEATHEN ORIGIN.”

Doubtless the most striking and forceful section in the book is Part IV, on “The Mortality of Man.” Here is the comprehensive introductory paragraph CFF2 777.4

“‘The Immortality of the Soul’ is a doctrine of Heathen Origin. It was held by the Pagan Priests of Chaldea, Babylonia, and Egypt, centuries before the Christian Era; and by Pythagoras the Philosopher, who taught the pre-existence and transmigration of souls. After him it was taught by Socrates, a most celebrated heathen philosopher, and after him by Plato and the Platonists, from which sect sprang some of the earliest heresies of the Christian Church of the first four centuries. The doctrine of the existence of the soul or spirit of man in happiness or misery after death, independent of the body, is nowhere to be found in the Old or New Testament Scriptures; whilst in the New Testament the Resurrection of the body is everywhere held up as the great central hope of the Christian Church.” ²¹ CFF2 777.5

6. DEATH AND MORTALITY FROM DISOBEDIENCE

Turning to the Biblical account of the origin of man in Genesis 2, and the temptation and Fall in chapter 3, Waller makes this important comment: CFF2 777.6

“From the above quotation we learn, that man was created from dust, a material Organism or body, perfect in every part, fitted for the exercise of all the powers and faculties of mind and body for which he was created, through the means of the senses, of seeing, hearing, etc., with which he was endowed, and which were in the body; but, different from all the lower Animals, he was gifted with the power of Reason, by which he would be able to know and understand, and follow the will of his Creator, when revealed. But this Organism or body was lifeless, until ‘God breathed into man’s nostrils the breath of life;’ then, and not till then, life and motion became apparent in every part, and man ‘became a living soul,’ or person; capable of exercising all those powers of mind and body with which God had endowed his Organism, and would have continued to use them, and for ever, but for the sin of disobedience, by reason of which he was to be deprived of the perpetual use and exercise of them, and was to realize the dreadful sentence of the curse, in being driven out of the Paradise of Eden, with death and mortality begun.” ²² CFF2 778.1

7. NO DISEMBODIED “SPIRITS” SURVIVE DEATH

On death, as involving the complete cessation of all life in the intermediate state, Waller repeats and then declares further: CFF2 778.2

“The Biblical view of death, therefore, is a perfect cessation of all the powers and faculties of mind and body, as they have been exercised in a living material Organism or body, when ‘the dust shall return to the earth as it was; and the spirit,’ that is the breath or life of all men (good or bad), ‘shall return unto God who gave it,’ Ecclesiastes 7:7.” ²³ CFF2 778.3

Now note:
“Nor, on the other hand, is there any mention of the existence of the righteous or of the souls, or of the spirits of the righteous, in any place of happiness after death apart from their bodies until their Resurrection.” ²⁴ CFF2 778.4

8. “SLEEP” IMPLIES UNCONSCIOUSNESS AND LATER AWAKENING

As to the Biblical term “sleep,” Waller says succinctly:
“The sleep of man in death is referred to in sixty-eight places; the figure sleep implying a state of unconsciousness, of all the powers and faculties of mind and body, death being a long sleep; and pointing, necessarily, to an awakening and resuscitation of them.” ²⁵ CFF2 778.5

9. NO RESURRECTION OF LOWER ANIMALS

Continuing the analysis of the four Hebrew words for lying down in sleep, Waller adds: CFF2 778.6

“The figure sleep implying not only a state of unconsciousness of every part and power, of Body, Soul, and Spirit; but also a future Awakening, or Resurrection, or Resuscitation of the man, with the restoration of all his faculties and powers; but there is no Resurrection of the Lower Animals referred to in any of the books of the Old or New Testament Scriptures.” ²⁶ CFF2 779.1

10. MAN’S PRE-EMINENCE OVER THE BEASTS

An example of comment on a given text, such as Ecclesiastes 3:19, is the following, comparing and contrasting man and beast:
“All animal life has apparently one breath or spirit. In one respect the death of man and beast is alike; they both return to dust, and perish (Psalm 49:12). But there is a difference between them. The spirit, or breath, or life of man, ‘returns to God who gave it’ (Ecclesiastes 3:7), to imply that man shall be raised again to life, to eternal reward or punishment, which is not said of beasts; so that man has pre-eminence over a beast, though apparently in death he has none.” ²⁷ CFF2 779.2

11. NO IMMORTALITY UNTIL RESURRECTION

Coming to Immortal, Immortality, Incorruption, and Incorruptible in the New Testament, as to man, he says these provisions are only for the righteous, and then only after the resurrection. The righteous are “promised a Resurrection to immortality or eternal life, but not until the Resurrection and judgment, or separation of all men at the last day.” ²⁸ CFF2 779.3

12. RESURRECTION RECONSTITUTES COMPLETE ORGANISM

Continuing with the New Testament terms, Waller reiterates for emphasis:
“Man is said to sleep in death (not his body, for matter is never said to sleep, but his person); the figure sleep implying, not only a state of unconsciousness of every power and faculty of body, soul, and spirit; but also a future awakening, or resuscitation of the man, with the restoration of all his faculties and powers of mind and body in a living material Organism or person: and necessarily excludes any capability of reward or punishment, of happiness or misery, until the Resurrection, when all these faculties and powers of mind and body will re-exist in a living material Organism or Person.” ²⁹ CFF2 779.4

13. NO CONSCIOUSNESS DURING INTERMEDIATE STATE

Waller closes this section of Part IV, on Hades in The Apostles’ Creed, with this emphatic comment: CFF2 779.5

“Hades has already been referred to in this work, as ‘the state or place of the dead, gravedom’; and it is a most powerful and unanswerable argument in favour of this assertion, as the teaching of Scripture, from cover to cover, that there is not any instance in the Old or New Testament Scriptures of any person who was raised from the dead, having any consciousness of any existence in soul or body or spirit, in the intermediate state, or Hades.” ³⁰ CFF2 780.1

14. SAMPLERS FROM TEN SUMMARIZING POINTS

Part V, “The Summary,” gives a comprehensive epitome of the detailed evidence of the major sections of the volume. Space forbids adequate coverage of the ten major points that are presented in four pages. But here the evidence is finalized along with strictures on inadequate English translations. Three excerpts must suffice: CFF2 780.2

“Now from these [OT] passages it must be clear, that the existence of the living soul depends upon the blood as well as upon the breath, in a living Organism or body, so that when the blood ceases to circulate in Man or in the Lower Animals, all the faculties and powers of soul and body necessarily cease. But how could this Biblical truth, so distinctly stated in these passages, be gathered from the text of the English Authorised Version, when the Translators have in each of these seven quotations substituted life as the translation of Nephesh (soul) without any marginal note of the fact?” ³¹ CFF2 780.3

“Hence the popular opinion, that Christ’s soul was not poured out unto death, as being incapable of death; some affirming that it went after death to happiness in heaven; others supposing that it went to happiness after death to that part of Hades, reserved, as they hold, for the souls of the righteous; others affirming that it went to Paradise with the soul of the penitent thief, for which there is no authority in Scripture; whilst others affirmed that it went to another part of Hades; in which the spirits which were disobedient in the days of Noah were imprisoned, and ‘preached to them’ as supposed by them to be referred to in 1 Peter 3:16; but in no case did they accept the fact, that it was ‘poured out unto death’; though it is distinctly stated in each of these New Testament quotations in the use of the Greek word Psukee.” ³² CFF2 780.4

“The words Sheol (Hades) and Gehenna are completely different in their character; in Sheol (Hades), all men are said to sleep alike, the wicked resting there from their troubles till the Resurrection, but without hope; the righteous resting there ‘in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life’; whilst Gehenna is referred to as the place of punishment, for the lost, and is frequently associated with fire.” ³³ CFF2 780.5

In the closing sentence under point ten, Waller stresses again the principle of “the complete cessation of all the powers and faculties of mind and body in man at death till the Resurrection.” ³⁴ CFF2 781.1

That is the gist of Waller’s contribution, here given for reference. He emphasizes the two principles of the nature of man and his state in death. CFF2 781.2