The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2

XIV. Chaplain Irion-“Philosophical” Immortality Contradicts Biblical “Resurrection”

Evangelical and Reformed chaplain Dr. PAUL E. IRION ⁶⁵ of the Deaconess Hospital of St. Louis, Missouri, charges the anonymous poetic lines which he quotes to introduce his own comments with being “deceptively out of step with New Testament teachings” as to death and resurrection. Here again “resurrection” is differentiated from and placed over against the concept of inherent immortality. Dr. Irion’s view was expressed in 1957 in a periodical article for clergymen:” CFF2 930.3

‘You call it death-this seeming endless sleep,
We call it birth-the soul at last set free.
‘Tis hampered not by time or space-you weep,
Why weep at death? ‘Tis immortality.’
Anonymous CFF2 930.4

“These lines are deceptively out of step with the New Testament teaching of the Christian view of death and resurrection. The poet’s implication is that this immortality is a natural result of what we call death. Rather than being the gift of God in redemption, it is inferred that this is a portion of the basic nature of man. CFF2 930.5

“I say that this is deceptively out of step with the New Testament view because this same notion appears again and again in funeral literature and has so often been uncritically accepted for popular usage. Yet if one stops for careful analysis, it is apparent that this is a promulgation of a philosophical concept of immortality rather than the uniquely Christian concept of resurrection.” ⁶⁶ CFF2 931.1