Immortality or Resurrection (Updated), William West [black female authors .txt] 📗

was not speaking of
physical death for like Lazarus believers shall die, but unlike nonbelievers they have a
new existence, a new life in Christ that is no longer subject to the enemy, death. They
have a victory over death and can say with Paul, "Death is swallowed up in victory, O
death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin: and the power of sin is the law: but
thinks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Corinthians
15:55-56). We are told twice that the second death has no power over believers
(Revelation 2:11; 20:6). They are not subject to it and shall live forever. "Our Savior
Christ Jesus, who abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the
gospel" (2 Timothy 1:10); Christ defeated the enemy by His resurrection and gave life to
faithful believers.
"The words of the Bible contain all the ideas in it. These words, then, rightly understood, and
the ideas are clearly perceived. The words and sentences of the Bible are to be translated,
interpreted, and understood according to the same code of laws and principles of interpretation
by which other ancient writings are translated and understood; for, when God spoke to man in
his own language, He spoke as one person converses with another-IN THE FAIR, STIPULATED,
AND WELL-ESTABLISHED MEANING OF THE TERMS. This is essential to its character, as a
revelation from God; otherwise, it would be no revelation, but would always require a class of
inspired men to unfold and reveal its true sense to mankind" Alexander Campbell, "The Christian
System," Page 3, Gospel Advocate Company, 1835. "It is absolutely essential to the very idea of a
Divine communication in the form of a revelation, that its words and sentences be understood
according to their usual sense at the time when that communication was made, and amongst the
people to whom it was addressed and to whose care it was committed" A. Campbell, An essay on
"Life And Death" from the Millennial Harbinger, 1844.
“’Perish’! ‘ Perished’!! ‘Perisheth’ and ‘Perishing’!!! What do these words mean? They occur in
the sacred scriptures about one hundred and forth times. Again, I ask what do the mean? I
answer in every reference the word carries the thought of destruction; in numerous cases, utter
annihilation, utter destruction. Let us suppose that all we can know of the destiny of the ungodly
we must get from the passages in which these words are found. What would we conclude?
Eternal conscious punishment for all the wicked, without regard to how wicked? Not if there
is any meaning in the language? The word is used in the scriptures in the exact sense in
which the word as it stands in English is used, or its corresponding word in every language and
dialect. We say: ‘His hand has perished.’ We say: ‘For want of rain our crops have perished.’ We
say: ‘Babylon has perished.’ We say: ‘The seed we sowed perished because it was without life.’
What do we mean? We can only mean one thing. Absolute destruction! So far as we know God
has but one way of communicating with man; namely, language. This language is clear, pointed,
unmistakable. Christianity has life, or immortality, and he offers it to men hear, and those who
reject the light and the life must perish.” Ashley Johnson, Founder and president of the Johnson
Bible College, “The Resurrection And The Future Life,” Page 420-421, 1913, Knoxville
Lithographing Company, church of Christ.
“When the Lord talked with men, and used human language, if he placed other meanings on
the words than those understood by men, HOW COULD GOD TEACH US? Or if he used them in
a figurative sense, in their last and most important application, why were we not apprised of the
change...IF THE BIBLE DOESN’T MEAN WHAT IT SAYS, THEN NOBODY KNOWS WHAT IT
DOES MEAN.” E. D. Slough, “The Indictment Of Eternal Torment—The Self-negation Of A
Monstrous Doctrine,” Page 195-206, F. L. Rowe, Publisher, 1914, evangelist, church of Christ.
Those who believe men are now immortal have to make the words that God used not
mean what they say. Is it not unreasonable to make words in the Bible has a meaning
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attached to them that is unlike the way they are used in any other book in the world,
unlike the way they were used in the language of those God spoke to?
(1) LIFE must be changed to be not life but is only a reward to those who are born
with eternal life. Is it not unreasonable to say the many times Christ promised eternal life
to those that believe Him, that He only promised them a reward and not eternal life? And
just as unreasonable to say that He promised life to only to a part a person that was born
with eternal life and cannot die and only this immaterial part of a person will be in
Heaven. This doctrine of an immortal soul that cannot die makes Christ promise us
something over and over that we already had. Throughout the Book of John, Christ
repeatedly promised life to those who believed and those who did not believe would not
see life (John 3:36; 4:14; 4:36; 5:21; 5:40; 6:33, 39, 44, 47, 57, 63, 68). "That to all whom
you have given him, he should give eternal life. And this is life eternal, that they should
know you the only true God, and him whom you did send, even Jesus Christ" (John 17:2-
3). There could not be a stronger statement saying only those who believe in Jesus will
have life, and those who do not believe will not be given any life anywhere.
Alexander Campbell in his preface to "The Living Oracles," his translation of the New
Testament said, "The reader will please to consider, that, when God spoke to man, he adopted
the language of man. To the fathers of the Jewish nation he spoke in their mother tongue. By his
Son, and his Son by the Apostles, spoke to every nation in its own language. When he spoke to
any nation, he uniformly adopted the words of that nation in expressing his will to it. And that he
used their words in the commonly received sense, needs no other proof than this, that if he had
not done so, instead of enlightening them in the knowledge of his will, he would have deceived
and confounded them: than which, no hypothesis is more impious. For example: were God to
speak to us in English, and select from our vocabulary the words death, punishment, perpetual,
and wicked; were he to use the last term as we use it, and annex to the others a significant
different from that we affix to them--such as to mean life by the term death, happiness
by the punishment, and a limited time by the word perpetual; and without apprising us of such a
change, in their meaning...what a deception would he practice on us!" HOW MANY CHANGE
"DEATH" TO "LIFE," BY CHANGING "THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH" TO "THE WAGES OF SIN
IS ETERNAL LIFE WITH TORMENT"?
"Its uniform testimony (the New Testament) is that 'eternal life' hereafter will be the exclusive
possession of the just, and that the wicked will certainly not obtain it: 'He that believeth on the
Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life.' Our simple enquiry
is, what is meant by that Greek word translated 'life' in the passages referred to. Our Lord in
addressing Himself to the Jewish people, Luke in writing a Gospel for the Gentile world, Paul in
writing to Rome, the metropolis of heathenism, or Corinth priding itself on the Grecian tongue,
James, Peter, and Jude writing to Christians wherever scattered over the earth, all alike use this
word as universally understood. We have only, therefore, to refer to our classical dictionaries,
and there we find its primary and universally accepted sense to be existence. If we want any
further confirmation, let us listen to the Apostle James defining it's meaning: 'What is your life? It
is even a vapor, that appeared for a little time, and then vanishes away.' On the classical usage,
and express definition of the New Testament, we take our stand. Dictionaries of the New
Testament, and commentators on it, may, if they please, put upon the phrase the sense of
'happiness' in the numberless passage where it occurs, but we deny to them the right to alter the
meaning of a well understood Grecian word for the sake of bolstering up their baseless and
horrid creed" Henry Constable, The Duration and Nature of Future Punishment" 1871.
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(2) DEATH must be changed so that it does not mean death but eternal life with
torment for those who can never be dead. The dead are not really dead for death is only
"a loss of well being" a loss of happiness and is eternal life with torment. Death must be
made to be not death but a doorway to a spiritual world where ALL, both the saved and
the lost are alive and have eternal life; to the saved death means an instant doorway to a
greater and fuller life; to the lost an instant doorway to an eternal life of pain. In no plain
language can death be said to be the wages of sin to an immortal being that cannot die.
DEATH IS MADE TO BE NOT DEATH BUT A MERE CHANGE IN THE MODE OF
EXISTENCE. TO MANY, DEATH MEANS TO BE ALIVE, TO HAVE ETERNAL
LIFE, BUT SEPARATED FROM GOD AND TORMENTED BY GOD. TO MAKE
THE WORD "DEATH" FIT THEIR VIEW; THEY MUST MAKE IT FIGURATIVE.
THE TRUE MEANING OF THE WORD WILL DESTROY THEIR VIEW. ALL
PLAIN PASSAGES LIKE ROMANS 6:23 (THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH) MUST
BE MADE INTO FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE, BUT THEY CANNOT TELL US HOW
THEY KNOW WHAT THE FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE MEANS. THEY CANNOT
TELL US HOW THEY KNOW "DEATH" MEANS "LIFE." A basic rule of Bible study,
which is accepted by most, is a word or a passage must be assumed to be literal unless the
context demands that it must be taken figuratively. They cannot tell why the word
"death" must be made figurative other than it would destroy their teaching if it were used
with it's true meaning. For those in Hell to feel pain they could not be dead, they would
have to be just as alive as those in Heaven.
When the death of anyone is spoken of in the Bible, the modern phraseology (they
have gone to be with Christ, have gone to their reward, have gone to be with their loved
ones in Heaven, etc.) is never used. Not even Abraham is said to have gone to his home
in Heaven at his death before the judgment. "And Abraham breathed his last and died in
a ripe old age, an old man and satisfied with life; and he was gathered to his people"
(Genesis 25:8 New American Standard Version). Such a radical change of death to life in
torment is a denial of death; an attempt to evade death by saying the real person is
immortal and therefore is not subject to death. It is a deliberate carefully thought out
wresting of the scriptures (2 Peter 3:16).
DEATH HAS BEEN CHANGED TO LIFE
• Those that refused to have God in their knowledge “are worthy of DEATH”
(Romans 1:28-32), but are given life in Hell.
• Sin is “unto DEATH” (Romans 6:16) “Leads to DEATH” New International
Version, has been changed to sinners live forever in torment.
• “The wages of sin is DEATH” (Romans 6:23), but the wages can never be paid because man
teaches an immortality soul cannot die.
• “For if you live according to the flesh, you must DIE” (Romans 8:13), but an
immortality