We may offset this assertion of Luther Lee's with the following criticism from Professor Bush:

As her soul was in departing. Hebrew, betzeth naphshah, in the going out of her soul, or life. Greek, en to aphienai auten ten psuchen, in her sending out her life. The language legitimately implies no more than the departing, or ceasing, of the vital principle, whatever that be. In like manner, when the prophet Elijah stretched himself upon the dead child (1 Kings 17:21), and cried three times, saying, O Lord my God, . . . let this child's soul come into him again, he merely prays for the return of his physical vitality.

The Hebrew word here translated "soul" is nephesh, rendered in the Septuagint by psuche; and it is unnecessary to remind those who have read the chapter on "Soul and Spirit" that these words mean many other things besides ``body " and ``brains."

They often signify that which can be said to leave the body, as we shall presently see, rendering entirely uncalled for the supposition of an immaterial spirit, which Mr. Lee makes such haste to adopt.

What, then, did depart? And what is the plain, simple import of the declaration? We call the reader's attention again to the criticism of Parkhurst, the lexicographer, on this passage:

As a noun, nephesh hath been supposed to signify the spiritual part of man, or what we commonly call his soul. I must for myself confess that I can find no passage where it hath undoubtedly this meaning. Genesis 35:18; 1 Kings 17:21, 22; Psalm 16:10, seem fairest for this signification. But may not nephesh in the three former passages, be most properly rendered breath, and in the last, a breathing or animal frame?

Thus, while Mr. Parkhurst admits that Genesis 35:18 is the fairest instance that can be found where nephesh could be supposed to mean the spiritual part of man, yet he will not so far hazard his reputation as a scholar and a critic, as to give it that meaning in this or any other instance, declaring that here it may most properly be rendered "breath." And this is in harmony with the account of man's creation, where it is seen that the imparting of the "breath of life" is what made Adam a living soul; and the loss of that " breath," of course, reduces man again to a state of death.

1 Kings 17:22: "And the Lord heard the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived." In the light of the foregoing criticism on Genesis 35:18, this text scarcely needs a passing remark. The same principle of interpretation applies to this as to the former. But one can hardly read such passages as this without noticing how at variance with the popular view they read. The child, as a whole, is the object with which the text deals. The child was dead. Something, called the "soul," which the child is spoken of as having in possession, had gone from him, which caused his death. This element, not the child itself but what belonged to the child as a living being, came into him again, and the child revived.

But according to the immaterialist view, this passage should not so read at all. For that view makes the soul to be the child proper; and with this idea, the passage should read something like this: "And the Lord heard the voice of Elijah, and the child came back and took possession of his body and the body revived." This is the popular view. Mark the chasm between it and the Scripture record.

Verse 17 tells what had left the child, and what it was therefore necessary for the child to recover before he could live again. "His sickness was so sore,'' says the record, "that there was no breath left in him." That was the trouble: the "breath of life" was gone from the child. And when Elijah comes to pray for his restoration, he asks, in the most natural manner possible, that the very thing that had left the child, and thereby caused his death, might come into him again, and cause him to live; and that was simply what verse 17 states -- "the breath of life."

Thus in neither of these passages do we find any evidence of the existence of an immaterial, immortal soul, which so confidently claims the throne of honor in the temple of modern orthodoxy.

2. Can the Soul Be Killed?

Matthew 10:28: "And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell."

Luke records the same sentiment in these words: "And I say unto you my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him." Luke 12:4, 5.

This is considered a stronghold by all immaterialists. The estimate which they put upon these texts is thus expressed by Mr. Landis (p. 181):

This text (Matthew 10:28), therefore, must continue to stand as the testimony of the Son of God in favor of the soul's immortality, and his solemn condemnation of the soul-ruining errors of the annihilation and Sadducean doctrine.

The reply comes, without calling, on this wise: Mr. L. evidently applies the argument to a wrong issue; for whatever it may teach concerning the intermediate state, it is most positively against the doctrine of eternal misery, and the consequent immortality of the soul. It teaches that God can destroy the soul in hell; and there is no force in our Lord's warning unless we understand it to affirm that he will thus destroy the souls of the wicked. We never could with any propriety be warned to fear a person because he could do that which he never designed to do, and never would do. We are to fear the civil magistrate to such a degree, at least, as not to offend against the laws, because he has power to put those laws into execution, and visit upon us merited punishment, but our fear is to rest not simply upon the fact that he has power to do this, but upon the certainty that he will do it if we are guilty of crime. Otherwise there could be no cause for fear, and no ground for any exhortation to fear.

Now we are to fear God, that is, fear to disobey him, because he is able to destroy body and soul in hell. And what is necessarily implied in this I -- It is implied that he certainly will do this in the cases of all those who do not fear him enough to comply with his requirements. So the text is a direct affirmation that the wicked will be destroyed, both soul and body, in hell.

The next inquiry is, What is the meaning of the word "destroy"? -- We answer that, take the word "soul" to mean what we will, the word "destroy" here has the same meaning and the same force as applied to the soul, that the word ``kill'' has as applied to the body in the sentence before. Whatever killing does to the body, destroying does to the soul. Don't fear men, because they cannot kill the soul as they kill the body; but fear God, because he can and will kill the soul (if wicked) just as men kill the body. But every one well understands what it does to the body to kill it. It deprives all of its functions and powers of life and activity. It would do the same to the soul to destroy it, supposing the soul to be what is popularly believed. The word here rendered "destroy" is apolluo, and is defined by Greenfield, ``to destroy, to kill, to put to death," etc.

Having seen that the text affirms in the most positive manner the destruction of soul and body, or the complete cessation of conscious existence, for all the wicked, in hell, we now inquire whether it teaches a conscious existence for the soul in the intermediate state? This must be, it is claimed, because man cannot kill it. But the killing which God inflicts, according to the popular view, is torment in the flames of hell, and that commences immediately upon the death of the body. Let us, then, see what the Scriptures testify concerning the receptacle of the dead and the place of punishment.

The word "hell "in our English version is from three different Greek words. These words are hades, gehenna, and tartaroo (a verb signifying to thrust down to Tartarus). These all designate different places; and the following full list of the instances of their occurrence in the New Testament, will show their use.

Hades occurs in the following passages:

Matthew 11:23, shall be brought down to hell.
16:18, the gates of hell shall not prevail.

Luke 10:15, shalt be thrust down to hell.
16:23, in hell he lifted up his eyes.

Acts 2:27, wilt not leave my soul in hell.
2:31 his soul was not left in hell.

1Corinthians 15:55, O grave, where is thy victory?

Revelation 1:18, have the keys of hell and of death.
6:8, was Death and hell followed
20:13, death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them.
20:14, death and hell were cast into the lake of fire.

Gehenna signifies Gehenna, the valley of Hinnom, near Jerusalem, in which fires were kept constantly burning to consume the bodies of malefactors and the rubbish which was brought from the city and cast therein. It is found in the following places:

Matthew 5:22, shall be in danger of hell fire.
5:29, whole body should be cast into hell.
5:30, whole body should be cast into hell.
10:28, destroy both soul and body in hell.
18:9, having two eyes to be cast into hell fire.
23:15, more the child of hell than yourselves.
23:33, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?

Mark 9:43, having two hands to go into hell.
9:45, having two feet to be cast into hell.
9:47, having two eyes to be cast into hell fire.

Luke 12:5, hath power to cast into hell.

James 3:6, it is set on fire of hell.

Tartaro-o is used only in the following text: "God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell." 2 Peter 2:4.

From these references it will be seen that hades is the place of the dead, whether righteous or wicked, from which they are brought only by a resurrection. Revelation 20:13. On the contrary, Gehenna is the place into which the wicked are to be cast alive with all their members, to be destroyed soul and body. These places, therefore, are not to be confounded together.

Now the punishment against which the text warns us is not a punishment in hades, the state or place of the dead, but in Gehenna, which is not inflicted till after the resurrection. Therefore we affirm that the text contains no instruction whatever concerning the condition of mat in death, but passes over the entire period from the death of the body to the resurrection. And this is further evident from the language in which Luke records the passage: "Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he bath killed bath power to cast into hell."

Luke does not use the term "soul" at all; yet he expresses the same sentiment as Matthew. Man can kill the body, or destroy this present life; but he can accomplish no destruction beyond that. But God is able not only to kill the body, or destroy the present life, but he can cast into Gehenna, or destroy the life that we may have beyond the resurrection. These two things alone the text has in view. And now when we remember that psuche, the word here rendered "soul," means "life," either the present or future, and is forty times in the New Testament so rendered, the text is freed from all difficulty. The word "kill," to be sure, is not such as would naturally be used in connection with "life;" but the word "destroy," which is among the definitions of the original word, apokteino, can be appropriately used with "life." Thus: Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to destroy the future life; but rather fear him who is able to destroy the body, and put an end to all future life, in hell. And it is worthy of notice that the destruction in hell here threatened is not inflicted a person without his body. Nothing is said about God's destroying the soul alone; but it is at some point beyond this life, when the person again has a body; which is not till after the resurrection.

Another declaration front the lips of our Lord, found in Matthew 16:25, 26, will throw some light on our present subject "For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" The word "soul" should here be rendered "life." What shall a man give in exchange for his life? That is, his future life. Dr. Clarke, on verse 26, says: "On what authority many here translate the word psuche in the 25th verse, `life,' and in this verse, `soul,' I know not; but am certain it means `life' in both places."

Verse 39 of Matthew 10 is also a good comment on verse 28, now under notice: "He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it." Here the same word, psuche, rendered "soul" in verse 28, is twice used, and rendered "life." The teaching of the passage is very evident. "He that findeth his life shall lose it;" that is, he that rejects Christ for the sake of preserving this present life (psuche), shall lose it (the future psuche) in the world to come; "and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it;" that is, he that will follow Christ, though it cost him his present life (psuche), shall find it (psuche) in the world to come; for man cannot touch that life; as in verse 28, they may kill the body, deprive us of this present life; but they cannot destroy the psuche that remains to God's children after this, that is, the life to come.

Rendering psuche as it is rendered in verse 28, this 39th verse would read: "He that findeth his soul shall lose it; and he that loseth his soul for my sake shall find it." Let us now take the expression to "find "or "save the soul," and to "lose the soul," in the sense of popular theology, and see how ridiculous the teaching of the passages above referred to would be. Whosoever will save his soul (to save the soul meaning to save it from hell) shall lose it (that is, shall go into hell torments); but whosoever will lose his soul (suffer eternal misery) for my sake shall find it (shall be saved in heaven). This makes utter nonsense of the passage, and so is sufficient condemnation of the view which makes such an interpretation necessary.

The passage simply refers to the present and future life. Thus: Whosoever will save his life (that is, will deny Christ and his gospel for the sake of avoiding persecution or the loss of his present life), shall lose it (the future life) in the world to come, when God shall destroy both soul and body in Gehenna; but he who shall lose his present life, if need be, for the sake of Christ and his cause, shall find it (the boon of immortality) in the world to come, when eternal life is given to all the overcomers.

Here the life is spoken of as something which can be lost and found again. Between the losing and the finding, no one can claim that it maintains a conscious existence. And what is meant by finding it? -- Simply that God will bestow it upon us in the future, beyond the resurrection. What, then is meant by the expression that man cannot kill it? -- Simply the same thing, that God will, in the resurrection, endow us with life again -- a life which it is beyond the power of man to take from us.

The life of all men is in the hands of God. The body was formed of the dust, but the "life" was imparted by God. Man, by sin, has made this present life a temporary one. But through the plan of salvation, by which the human race was placed upon a second probation after Adam's fall, with the privilege of still gaining eternal life, a future life is decreed for all; for there shall be a resurrection of the just and the unjust. With the righteous, this life will be eternal; for they have secured the forgiveness of all their sins through Jesus Christ; but with the wicked it will soon end in the second death; for they have thrown away their golden privilege, and clung to their sins, the wages of which is death. Evil men may, by persecution, hasten the close of the Christian's present temporary life -- may cut it short by killing the body -- for some years before it would close in the natural course of events; but that future life, which in the purpose of God is as sure as his own throne, they cannot touch.

The exhortation is to those who are striving to serve God, and who thereby are liable to lose their present lives at the hands of wicked men, for the truth's sake. Fears them not, though with the bloody arm of persecution they may deprive you of the present life; for the life which is to come, they cannot reach.

And the warning is to the wicked, that unless they fear God more than they fear men, and are governed by his glory more than by worldly considerations, he will bring their existence to an utter end in the fire of Gehenna.

The text, therefore, so far from proving the existence in man of an independent, death- surviving, entity called the immortal soul, speaks only of the present and future life; and, passing over the entire period between death and the resurrection, then promises the righteous a life which man cannot destroy, and affirms that the wicked shall utterly cease to be, in the second death.

In Revelation 6:9-11 is another instance where the word "soul" is used in a manner which many take to be proof that there is in man a separate entity, conscious in death, and capable in a disembodied state, of performing all the acts, and exercising all the emotions, which pertain to this life. The verses referred to read:

And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: and they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, 0 Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow servants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.

On the hypothesis of the popular view, what conclusions must we draw from this testimony?

1. It is assumed that these souls were in heaven; then the altar under which John saw them must have been the ``altar of incense," as that is the only altar brought to view in heaven. Revelation 8:3. But the altar spoken of in the text, is evidently the altar of sacrifice upon which they were slain. Therefore to represent them as under the altar of incense, which was never used for sacrifice, is both incongruous and unscriptural.

2. We must conclude that they were in a state of confinement, shut up under the altar -- not a condition we would naturally associate with the perfection of heavenly bliss.

3. Solomon says of the dead, that their love, their hatred, and their envy is now perished. Ecclesiastes 9:6. But that makes no difference; for here are the souls of the holy martyrs still smarting with resentment against their persecutors, and calling for vengeance upon their devoted heads. Is this altogether consistent? Would not the superlative bliss of heaven swallow up all resentment against those who had done them this good, though they meant them harm, and lead them to bless rather than curse the hand that had hastened them thither?

But further: the same view which puts these souls into heaven, puts the souls of the wicked, at the termination of this mortal life, into the lake of fire, where they are racked with unutterable and unceasing anguish, in full view of all the heavenly host. In proof that the worlds of bliss and torment are held to be in full view of each other, we have only to refer to the common interpretation of the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, in which Abraham in bliss and the rich man in torment, are supposed not only to behold each other, but to converse together. But is it so? If it is not, then the popular exposition of the parable must be abandoned. But that supposed stronghold will not readily be surrendered. It is proper, therefore, to look at the bearing it has upon the case before us.

According, then, to the orthodox view, the persecutor of these souls were even then, or certainly soon would be enveloped in the flames of hell, right before their eyes, every fiber of their being quivering with a keenness of which no language can express, and of which no mind can adequately conceive.

Here they were in their agony, in full view of these souls of the martyrs, and their piercing shrieks of infinite and hopeless woe, ringing in their ears -- for the rich man and Abraham, as we have seen, could converse together across the gulf. And was not the sight of all this woe enough to satisfy the most insatiate desires for vengeance? Is there a fiend in hell who could manifest the malevolence of planning and praying for greater vengeance than this? Yet these souls are represented, even under these circumstances, as calling upon God to avenge their blood on their persecutors, and saying, "How long?" as if chiding the tardy movements of Providence, in commencing or intensifying their torments. Such is the character which the common view attributes to these holy martyrs, and such the spirit with which it clothes a system of religion, the chief injunction of which is mercy. Does it find endorsement in any breast in which there remains a drop of even the milk of human kindness?

These souls pray that their blood may be avenged -- an article which the uncompounded, invisible, and immaterial soul, as generally understood, is not supposed to possess.

These are some of the difficulties we meet, some of the camels we have to swallow in taking down the popular view.

But it is urged that these souls must be conscious; for they cry to God. How easily our expositors forget that language has any figurative use, when they wish it to be literal, or that it is ever used literally, when they wish it to be figurative. There is supposed to be supposed to be such a figure of speech as "personification," in which, under certain conditions, life, action, and intelligence are attributed to inanimate objects. Thus the blood of Abel is said to have cried to God from the ground. Genesis 4:9, 10. The stone cried out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber answered it. Habakkuk 2:11. The hire of the laborers, kept back by fraud, cried; and the cry entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth. James 5:4. So these souls could cry, in the same sense, and yet be no more conscious than Abel's blood, the stone, the beam, or the laborer's hire.

So incongruous is the popular view, that Albert Barnes makes haste to set himself right on the record as follows:

We are not to suppose that this literally occurred, and that John actually saw the souls of martyrs beneath the altar, for the whole representation is symbolical; nor are we to suppose that the injured and the wronged in heaven actually pray for vengeance on those who wronged them, nor that the redeemed in heaven will continue to pray with reference to things on earth; but it may be fairly inferred from this that there will be as real a remembrance of the wrongs of the persecuted, the injured, and the oppressed, as if such a prayer was offered there; and that the oppressor has as much to dread from the divine vengeance, as if those whom he has injured should cry in heaven to the God who hears prayer, and who takes vengeance.

But it is said that white robes were given them; hence it is further urged that they must be conscious. But this no more follows than it does from the fact that they cried. What were the circumstances? -- This scene is located at the opening of the fifth seal, and the souls brought to view are those who had been martyred under preceding papal persecutions. They had gone down to the grave in the most ignominious manner. Their lives had been misrepresented, their reputations tarnished, their names defamed, their motives maligned, and their graves covered with shame and reproach, as containing the dishonored dust of the most vile and despicable characters. Thus the church of Rome, which then molded the sentiments of the principal nations of the earth, spared no pains to make her victims an abhorring unto all flesh.

But the Reformation commenced its work. It soon began to be seen that the Romish Church was the corrupt and disreputable party, and those against whom it vented its rage were the good, the pure, and the true. The work went on among the most enlightened nations, the reputation of the church going down, and that of the martyrs coming up, until the corruptions of the papal abomination were fully exposed, and that huge system of iniquity stood before the world in all its naked deformity, while the martyrs were vindicated from all the aspersions under which that anti-Christian church had sought to bury them. Then it was seen that they had suffered, not for being vile and criminal, but "for the word of God and for the testimony which they held." Then their praises were sung, their virtues admired, their fortitude applauded, their names honored, and their memory cherished. And thus it is even to this day. White robes have thus been given unto them.

The whole trouble on such passages as this, we conceive to arise from the theological definition of the word "soul." From that definition, one is led to suppose that this text speaks of an immaterial, invisible, immortal essence in man, which soars into its coveted freedom on the death of its hindrance and clog, the mortal body. No instance of the occurrence of the word in the original Hebrew or Greek will sustain such a definition. It oftenest means "life;" and is not unfrequently rendered "person." It applies to the dead as well as to the living, as may be seen by reference to Genesis 2:7, where the word "living" need not have been expressed were life an inseparable attribute of the soul; and to Numbers 19:13, and many other passages where the Hebrew literally reads, "dead soul."

The reader is also referred to a previous chapter on Soul and Spirit. From the definitions there given, it is evident that the word "soul" may mean, and the context requires that it here should mean, simply the martyrs, those who had been slain; the expression, "the souls of them," being used to designate the whole person. They were represented to John as having been slain upon the altar of papal sacrifice on this earth, and lying dead beneath it. So Dr. Clarke, on this passage, says, "The altar is upon earth, not in heaven." They certainly were not alive when John saw them under the fifth seal; for he again brings to view the same company in almost the same language, and assures us that the first time they live after their martyrdom, is at the resurrection of the just. Revelation 20: 4-6. Lying there, victims of papal bloodthirstiness and oppression, the great wrong, of which their sacrifice was the evidence, called upon God for vengeance. They cried, or their blood cried, even as Abel's blood cried, to God from the ground.

Thus all becomes clear and plain when we treat the Bible as we would treat any other book; that is, let figures have their place, and perform their office; but let all figurative language be explained by the literal. Before this simple rule, the strongholds of man's natural immortality go down one after another like cardboard breastworks before a charge of modern artillery.

4. Body, Soul, and Spirit

1Thessalonians 5:23: "And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." Because the words ``soul" and ``spirit" are here used, the common reader, misled by the popular definitions given to these terms, is apt to take this text at once as a recognition of such an immortal part of man as current theology pictures before us. But it will be noticed that here are two terms each of which is, at different times, thrust forward as meaning the immortal part of man. In the face of this text, one or the other of these terms must now be surrendered as bearing that signification; for surely man has not two immortal parts. Here, then, it must be conceded that either the term, "spirit" does not signify an immaterial and immortal part of man, or that the term "soul" does not signify any such part. Now one term has just as much claim to be considered an immortal part of man as the other, and whichever one is surrendered as not signi- fying such part, it will be just as easy to disprove the claims of the other. Three terms here are applied to man, with the evident idea of giving enough to make it sure that man's entire being is intended. This is apparent from the opening expression: "The very God of peace sanctify you wholly," etc.; and later the use of the word "whole," conveys the same idea: "Your whole spirit and whole soul and [whole] body." But it will be noticed that no wish is expressed in regard to any one part independently of the others. Paul does not say, May your spirit be preserved blameless, without the soul and body, or your soul without the spirit and body, or your body without the soul and spirit. But the prayer takes in all three together as an inseparable compound, the whole constituting the entire man. In the Bible description of man, there is no "line of cleavage" between these different parts. It takes them all to make the whole responsible being.

If one that any exposition which does not locate these different parts, is unsatisfactory, it is very easy to make such location. The "body" is composed of matter-- it is a quantity of material; the organization into a condition capable of being endowed with life, makes a "soul," or an ``organized being;" and the "spirit,'' or "breath of life," gives it vitality; and as a result an organized, living, rational being appears. The material of which man is composed, the organization and the life with which he is endowed, makes the whole being. The definitions of the terms as already shown, will fully bear out this application. It is a periphrasis, or expression drawn out in full, to describe the whole person. As such it is an unfortunate text for the popular view.