One of the most important passages, rather, perhaps, on the ground of what it implies than of what it directly states, is the declaration reeorde<l in St. Matthew's Gospel (16'*) of the permanence and inWolability of Christ's Church, founded and built up as it is upon Himself.* The Speaker can hardly be conceived as thinking of a mere tempor- ai-y duration of that Church, united as it is with Him in the closest of all bonds ; the destruction or annihilation of the one would involve a like fate for the other ; ' tlie gates of Hades shall not pre- vail against it' now or henceforth. Ajid if the Church is to remain, then necessarily its members collectively ; for the Clmrch i^ the members.
It may be said also that the abiding nature of Christ's words (Mt 24», Mk 13'i, Lk 21^3), under the circumstances of their utterance, presupposes the continued existence of intelligent receptive hearers and doers. The permanence of His words is contrasted with that which in the universe appears most permanent and unchanged, ' Heaven and earth shall p;iss away, Imt my words shall not pass away' (Mk 13". if. Mt .'i'*. I.k lij'") ; in no part or degi-ee shall tlicii luc (.iii|ili-liiii,_.ut fail to be
achieved. But this ni.lit.- tullilment does not
imply the cessation ol tlinir I'llVit upon and in tliose for whom thej' are spoken. Kather is it the beginning of a new life, which is only then perfected.
The literal demands of these passages would be satislied by what has sometimes been termed ' racial ' or ' collective ' immortality ; in which the race might he supposed to jwrsist, while the indi- viduals, each and all in turn, perislied. Such an interpretation could not be ruled out of court on the ground that it is not suggested elsewhere in Christ's teaching. But a conception .so remote and unusual would seem to require much more clear and definite exposition, and is hardly con- sistent with the numerous references to a personal and individual survival.
In a negative sense also phrases like ri t4\os
' It is strange that it) raCfr, ty. Ttrfia is still sometimes re- ferred to Peter. The Speaker, or the Evang^elist who reports Him, is playin;r upon the name in a characteristically Oriental manner. The similarity of the sound forms to Oriental thought a real bond of connexion between the persons. The whole jioint of the play is lost, aiid the expression reduced to mean- intjlessness and absurditv, if Xlh^c; and rirpot are identified (cf. 1 Co ICW, and in the OT, (3n i^'. Ex 21" etc.).
(Mt 24", Mk 13', Lk 2P), eis tAos (Mt 10- 24", Mk 13'=), ii (TvvTeXeia t. aiQyos (Mt IS*'- ^ 24») clearly do not imply an ahsolute end, involving annihila- tion or the like. They do not, of course, assert survival in any universalistic sense ; but they are not altogether neutral in the matter (cf . Mt 13 ll.cc. , and the interpretation that is given by Christ Himself of the parable of the Sower). The end of one era is the beginning of another, and for some at least ushers in a period of supreme blessedness (Mt 10- 24", Mk 13'^).
The indications which the Synoptic Gospels attord on the subject of the comparative duration of the existence of the righteous and the wicked after death are almost wholly concerned with the significance of words like aiui'ios ((ciXacris ai. Mt 25^'', TTvp aiioviov 18^ 20*^, aiwfLov afidpT7]fj.a Mk 3^, ei^ Tbv aiQva ib.), and wUl be more conveniently ex- amined together (see below). Here it need only be said that jmrables such as those of the Rich Man and Lazarus, the Wise and Foolish Virgins, or the Wedding Feast, do not in themselves suggest or de- mand any inequality of treatment as regards the mere duration of the allotted punishment or re- ward ; and that references to the Judgment, the Day of Judgment, or the Last Day are equally neutral, as far as direct statement is concerned. WhUe the burning of the tares in the parable of the Wheat and the Tares (Mt 13^), if the detaU is to be pressed as anything more than the natural and appropriate setting of the story, — the legiti- mate and necessary end of weeds,— rather points in the direction of permanence and indestructi- bility. Burning is not annihilation of matter, but transformation of form. And this particular feature of the parable might admit of interpreta- tion as implying renovation through suffering, but is hardly satisfied by any theory of absolute cessation of being. Similarly, it might he urged that the vvp S.(t§«itov of Mk 9** (cf. v.**) implies the permanence of the fuel on which it feeds. It is clear, however, that no secirre or decisive ar^- ment can be based on what are obviously allusive and metaphorical expressions.
B. St. John.— Within the Fourth Gospel, where, if anywhere in the record of our Lord's teaching, we might expect to find a reasoned and philo- sophical doctrine of a future life, that teaching is so entirely, or almost entirely, conveyed in con- nexion with a special phraseology, the leading terms of which are fw^, fa»7) oi'iivios, and eis t. aiUm, that little need be said by way of anticipa- tion of the special investigation of these terms. It is worth noting, however, at once, in view of the interpretation of these expressions which >vill be urged below, that every reference in St. John to a definite termination or close of a world-perioil is, as we saw was the case in tlie Synoptists, surli as to lire-suppose and assume a continuation bi'ynn.l Till' conception of an absolute end, l»y,,u.l \»1m. li tliere is nothing, is as foreign to till- tliou:;lit ..1 tliis Gospel as to that of the others. There i., a ■ la.st day' (r, iffx^rv V^pa, 6»'-«-" 11" 12^, a phrase not found in the Synoptists); but it terminates one age only to usher in another more glorious. Judgment (k-p/ffis) again in St. John does not ordinarily await the setting up of a future tribunal : it is immediate conviction, wrought by the jiresence of the light. And in the one passage where it is definitely relegated to the future (5=*) the parallelism of the phrase- ology {dfddTaffii /cp£<T£us— di'do-Tatris fu^s) shows that whatever threatening of sult'ering or retribution may lie behind the word, tliere is no thought of extinction, or of a final end, in the mind of the Speaker, — they that have practised ill (RVm) come to the resurrection equally with those that have done good. He cannot be conceived to mean