L I GHT ON PUZZLING PASSAGES a n d PROBLEMS By R. A. TORREY 1 0
for all we learn about the future state is what we; learn from the Bible, and the Bible does not clearly teach this. It seems also to point in the same direction that Moses, who died, and whose spirit had therefore left his body when he appeared on the mount of transfiguration to Refer and James and John, appeared in a visible ! and recognizable form (Matt. 17:3). ---- lease explain Luke 2 : 10 , if joy to all people, when, is it to be accomplished? The answer to the question is found in the Revised Version, -which ¿ives a more accurate rendering of the original. What the angel said to the shepherds was, “Be not afraid; for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all the people.” The people here referred to are the Jews, and of course their great joy will come when the people (i. e., the Jewish people as a nation) repent and turn to the Messiah they have rejected (Zech. 12:11- 13:1; Rom. 11:25-33). How is it possible for the wicked to suf fer eternally when God promises life to none except the righteous—Romans 6 : 23 ? Life does not mean e x i s t e n c e . One may have existence w i t h o u t having life. We are told distinctly in 1 Tim. 5:6 “She that liveth in pleasure, is dead while she lived}.” She has existence, conscious existence, but she has not life. Just so, those who die without Christ shall be raised from the dead, botfi the righteous and the wicked shall be raised, “All that are in the tombs shall hear His voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and . they that have done ill, unto the resurrec tion of judgment.” The wicked have a resurrection, but it is a resurrection unto judgment and suffering. They have exist-
How do you explain the sense of phys ical torment that the rich man of Luke 16 : 19-31 had in Hades, when it is apparent he is in Hades before the resurrection, and thus without a body? It is Very evident that the incident recorded in Luke 16:19-31 does not describe the condition of a lost man after the resur rection of the righteous and the wicked, but as the questioner says, his condition “in Hades before the resurrection.” It would be apparently easy to answer the question put to us above by saying that the account is wholly figurative, and that the rich man with parched and swollen tongue, longing for a single drop of water to cool his tongue, represents the agony of insa- , tiable desire of the one who cultivates, in this present life, unto dominant power, appetites and desires for which there is no gratification in that eternal world to which he is hurrying on, and that he carries this ■insatiable thirst for things which are not there into the future world. But we confess that this explanation does not satisfy us. The whole incident is not -given by our Lord as/a parable. There is no hint of its being a parable. Our Lord tells it as his tory, and while a figurative application may be warranted, application is not interpre tation. We have thought of this question quite a little in the past in the study of this passage, and the most likely Solution has seemed to us to be that while the spirit, when it leaves the body rs “unclothed” (2 Cor. 5:4), and'is not clothed upon with its final and eternal body until the return of our Lord, that it has, temporarily, some thing that corresponds- to a body, and which in the case of the lost’ is capable of suffering what corresponds to physical torment. But we do not feel, in a matter I of this kind, one can afford to be dogmatic,
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