| Highlights of Dawn | September 1966 |
The Bible Versus Tradition
WE ARE living in a day of examination, of investigation. The people of earth, in ever-increasing numbers, are no longer satisfied to believe without question that which has been handed down to them from the past. One of the results of the Ecumenical Council has been to emphasize that much of the teachings and practices of the Roman Catholic church are based on human traditions rather than on the Bible, and one of the points considered was whether or not traditions should be given the same weight of authority in the church as the inspired Word of God.
One of the traditions foisted upon the professed Christian world by the Roman Catholic Church was the great deception that death is but a gateway into another life—either a happy or unhappy life. Associated with this deception was the unscriptural theory that man possesses an immortal soul which continues to live after the body dies. If the person has been a faithful Christian, then his soul will eventually live in a heaven of happiness. In the Catholic view, however, even these good souls must first pass through a purgatory of suffering.
Protestantism, recognizing that the purgatory doctrine was a mere tradition not based on the Word of God, rejected it. Nevertheless, most of the principal leaders of the protestant movement held to the teaching of eternal torture, failing to recognize, apparently, that this monstrous idea was also merely a tradition, and not taught in the Bible.
The tradition that death is not a reality, that when one dies he is more alive than ever, dates back to the Garden of Eden, and is based on Satan’s lie to mother Eve, “Ye shall not surely die.” (Gen. 3:4) But God had said to Adam that if he partook of the forbidden fruit he would die—“Thou shalt surely die.” (Gen. 2:1-7) And all the inspired writers of the Bible corroborate God’s truth on this point. Four thousand years after God’s original statement concerning death, the Apostle Paul wrote, “The wages of sin is death.”—Rom. 6:23
And so far as the truth of God’s Word is concerned, there is no question as to the reality of death. “The dead know not anything,” Solomon wrote. And again, “There is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.” (Eccl. 9:5,10) In Ezekiel 18:4 we read, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” Solomon wrote, “That which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth then: as the one dieth so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; … all go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.”—Eccl. 3:19,20
In the Bible death is likened to a sleep. Those who are asleep are temporarily unconscious, and in the ordinary course of events they will awaken from their sleep. Just so, the dead may be regarded as being unconscious, and the Lord has promised that in due time divine power will be utilized to awaken the dead to life. This is the great hope of life after death that is taught in the Word of God. It is the hope of the resurrection of the dead. Man will have a future life because he was redeemed from death by the blood of Christ, and because he will be restored to life.
Tradition Widely Believed
Throughout the centuries from Eden only a few have believed in the truth set forth by God that the penalty for sin is death, not eternal torture. Instead, Satan’s lie has been embraced by the vast majority of mankind. Even the heathen world holds that death is not what it seems to be, that the dead are not really dead. And how often in the professed Christian world we hear the expression, “There is no death.” Probably most people who use this expression fail to realize that it is based merely on tradition rather than on the Word of God.
The expression “immortal soul” is also very widely used, and here again the general public do not realize that this is not a biblical expression. The word “soul” appears in the Bible many hundreds of times, but it is never said to be immortal. Speaking of the final punishment upon wilful sinners, the Apostle Peter said, “It shall come to pass that every soul, which will not hear that prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people.” (Acts 3:23) And Jesus said that souls will be destroyed in the Bible hell, not preserved and tormented.—Matt. 10:28
Some Not Deceived
We have expressed briefly the traditions concerning death, hell, the soul, and purgatory which have been held by the vast majority in the professed Christian world. However, there have been a few who have adhered to the teachings of the Bible on these subjects. These have agreed with the Lord that death is the penalty for sin, and that those who are dead are unconscious, and will remain so until the resurrection.
William Tyndale (1484-1536) was one of these. Historically, Tyndale is well known as one of the early translators of the Bible into English. While he was a native of England, he spent much of his life on the Continent because of the bitter opposition he encountered in England as a result of his work and teachings. In the end he suffered martyrdom.
It is not so well known that William Tyndale did not believe in the immortality of the soul. He believed and taught that the dead are asleep and remain so until the resurrection. One of Tyndale’s outspoken opponents was Sir Thomas More, who spoke of the “pestilential sect” represented by Tyndale and Luther. In “An Answer to Sir Thomas More’s Dialog,” Tyndale pointed out that More, in seeking to establish the theory of inherent immortality, was merely following the Papacy’s teachings, which, in turn, had been taken from “heathen philosophers.”
George Wishart (1500-1546) was a Greek scholar, friend of Latimer, and tutor of John Knox. He became a martyr for standing out against the traditional theory of the immortality of the soul and eternal torture. One of the charges against him was that he “preached openly, saying that the soul of man shall sleep to the latter day of judgment, and shall not obtain life immortal until that day.”
Samuel Richardson (1633-1658), Pastor of the First Particular Baptist Church of London, England, also rejected the tradition of eternal torture. A summarized report on his discourse on the torments of hell notes that the foundations and pillars of this teaching were “discovered, searched, shaken, and removed, with infallible proofs that there is not to be a punishment after this Life for any to endure that shall last forever.”
In the Seventeenth Century
Some of the outstanding churchmen and teachers in the seventeenth century who rejected the traditional teaching of inherent immortality and eternal torture were: John Milton, noted poet, and Latin secretary to Cromwell; John Canne, pastor of Broadmead Baptist Church, Bristol, England; John Tillotson, Archbishop of Canterbury; Dr. Isaac Barrow, professor of Greek in Cambridge University—to name a few.
The only valid test of whether or not a teaching is true is whether it is supported by the Word of God. But sometimes people ask why, if these traditions are not taught in the Bible, our educated clergymen have not discovered it. We are here calling attention to the fact that throughout the centuries there have been educated clergymen who have recognized the errors of belief in inherent immortality and eternal torture. The majority, of course, continued to prefer the traditions of men rather than the pure teachings of the Word of God.
In the Eighteenth Century
Some of those in the eighteenth century who rejected traditions and adhered to the teachings of the Bible were: Bishop Edmund Law, master of St. Peter’s College, archdeacon of Staffordshire, bishop of Carlisle; Peter Pecard, master of Magdalen College, Cambridge, and dean of Peterborough; Bishop William Warburton, of Gloucester, England; Dr. William Whiston, Baptist theologian and professor of mathematics, Cambridge University, England; and Dr. John Tottle, canon of Christ’s Church, Oxford, England.
All these learned men, and there were many others during the same period, were active in their opposition to these traditions which were not taught in the Bible. In all probability many of the “common people” of the time were influenced by these scholars. Surely it is good to know that in every part of the age there were those who held to the true teachings of the Bible with respect to “the wages of sin.” Satan’s lie, “Ye shall not surely die,” deceived the great majority, but not all.
In the Nineteenth Century
Among the many scholars of the nineteenth century who rejected the eternal torture tradition was Dr. Edmund White, Congregationalist, pastor of St. Paul’s Chapel. In an introduction to J.H. Pettinggell’s book, “The Unspeakable Gift,” Dr. White said, “I steadfastly maintain, after forty years of study of the matter, that it is the notion of the infliction of a torment in body and soul that shall be absolutely endless, which alone gives a foot of standing ground to Ingersol in America, or Bradlaugh in England. I believe more firmly than ever that it is a doctrine as contrary to every line of the Bible as it is contrary to every moral instinct of humanity.”
In the March, 1885, issue of the Homiletic Monthly (England), Dr. White had this to say: “The Old Testament is consistent throughout with the belief of eternal life of the servants of God, and of the eternal destruction of the wicked. And it is consistent, when taken in its simple sense with no other belief. The Gospels and Epistles with equal pertinacity adhere almost uniformly to language respecting the doom of the unsaved which taken in its simple sense, teaches, as does the Old Testament, that they shall die, perish, be destroyed, not see life, but suffer destruction, everlasting destruction, says Christ, ‘of body and soul in Gehenna.’”
Dr. J. Agar Beet, Wesleyan professor, in his preface to the book, “The Immortality of the Soul,” wrote, “The following pages are a protest against a doctrine which, during long centuries, has been almost universally accepted as divine truth taught in the Bible, but which seems to me altogether alien to it in both phrase and thought, and derived only from Greek philosophy. It will of course be said of this as of some other doctrines, that, if not implicitly taught in the Bible, it is implied and assumed there. … They who claim for their teachings the authority of God must prove that it comes from him. Such proof in this case, I have never seen.”
The claim that this or that teaching, while not explicitly taught in the Bible, is implied or assumed, is a common one. But, as Professor Beet observes, the genuine teachings of the Bible are those clearly set forth in its pages. Tradition is merely the product of human philosophy, and made acceptable to many by the claim that it is implied in the Bible. All students of the Word should insist that what they accept as truth is definitely taught in the Bible; and not, in the opinion of trusted teachers, merely implied or assumed in the sacred pages.
A Bible Translator
It is interesting to know that Dr. R.F. Weymouth, translator of the New Testament in Modern Speech, believed that death, not torment, is the punishment for sin. Dr. Weymouth said, “My mind fails to conceive a grosser misrepresentation of language than when five or six of the strongest words which the Greek tongue possesses, signifying to destroy or destruction, are explained to mean ‘maintaining an everlasting but wretched existence.’ To translate black as white is nothing to this.”
Dr. Lyman Abbott, Congregationalist pastor, and editor of “The Christian Union,” and “The Outlook,” said in the book “That Unknown Country”: “Outside of the walls of Jerusalem, in the valley of Gehenna, was kept perpetually burning a fire on which the offal of the city was thrown to be destroyed. This is the hell-fire of the New Testament. Christ warns his auditors that persistence in sin will make them offal to be cast out from the holy city to be destroyed. The worm that dieth not was the worm devouring the carcasses, and is equally clearly a symbol not of torture but of destruction.
“The notion that the final punishment of sin is continuance in sin and suffering is also based in part on, what seems to me, a false philosophy as to man. This philosophy is that man is by nature immortal. The conviction has grown in me that according to the teaching of both science and Scripture, man is by nature an animal, and like all other animals, mortal; that immortality belongs only to the spiritual life; and that spiritual life is possible only in communion and contact with God.”
Dr. Edward Beecher, in the book, “Doctrine of Scriptural Retribution,” declares that the Bible “does not recognize, nay, it expressly denies, the natural and inherent immortality of the soul. It assures us that God only hath immortality. Men are not, as Plato taught, self-existent, eternal beings, immortal in their very nature. … There is no inherent immortality of the soul as such. What God created he sustains in being, and can annihilate at will.”
So we might go on noting the many highly placed dignitaries in the church who did what they could to refute the implications of Satan’s lie, “Ye shall not surely die.” We are not presenting the testimony of these learned men with the thought of proving the truth by what they have said. The truth of God’s Word will ever stand out as the truth, regardless of who believes or disbelieves it. But it is encouraging, we think, to realize that we are not standing alone in our adherence to these fundamental truths of the Bible, that there were those in every part of the age who stood aloof from the traditions of men and insisted on being guided by the Bible alone.
And this, after all, is the important lesson for us. The immortality of the soul tradition, with its related implications, is not the only one that has come down to us from the darker past. But let us make sure that whatever we accept is based upon the Word of God, and not on tradition. “To the law and to the testimony, if they speak not according to this word, it is’ because there is no light in them.”—Isa. 8:20