pious dead from their prison ; and that they were the redeemed captives of whom the Apostle speaks in Ephesians iv. 8-10, as led by Christ into heaven. (3.) That those who die in the Lord since his advent, instead of being admitted into heaven, pass into the same place and the same state into which the patriarch passed at death before his coming. (4.) And as the Old Testament saints remained in Sheol until the first coming of the Messiah, so those who die under the New Testament, are to remain in Hades, until his second coming. Then they are not only to be delivered from Sheol, but their bodies are to be raised from the dead, and soul and body, reunited and glorified, are to be admitted into heaven.
Such is the scheme of doctrine said to be taught in the New Tes- tament. Our Lord is regarded as giving it his sanction in the par- able concerning Lazarus. Paul is made to teach it when he speaks of Christ as descending to " the lower parts of the earth," which is said to mean " the parts lower than the earth," that is, the un- der-world. His object in thus descending was, according to the theory, to deliver the souls confined in the gloomy prison of SheoL Christ's triumph over principalities and powers is referred to the same event, his descent into Hades. Mr. Alger, repre- senting a large class of writers, says that according to Paul's doctrine, " Christ was the first person clothed with humanity and experiencing death, admitted into heaven. Of all the hosts who had lived and died, every one had gone down into the dusky under-world. They were all held in durance waiting for the Great Deliverer." 1 The fate of those who die since the advent is no better, for they, as Paul is made to teach, are " all to remain in the under-world " until the second coming of Christ, " when they and the transformed living shall ascend together with the Lord."2
St. Peter is made to teacli the same doctrine in still more ex- plicit terms. In his discourse delivered on the day of Pentecost, he argued that Jesus is the Christ from the fact that God raised Him from the dead. That He was thus raised he argued from the sixteenth Psalm, where it is written, " Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption." That these words cannot refer to David, Peter ar- gued, because he did see corruption, and his sepulchre remained until that day. The words of the Psalmist, therefore, must be understood of Christ, whose soul was not left in hell (Sheol),
1 Alger, ut supra, p. 284. 2 Ibid. p. 288.
736 PART IV. Ch. I. — STATE OF SOUL AFTER DEATH.
neither did his flesh see corruption. As for David, he " is not as- cended into heaven." (Acts ii. 34.) Something, therefore, hap- pened to Christ that did not happen to David or to any other man. Christ was not left in hell ; David and all other men were thus left. Christ did ascend to heaven ; David did not ; and if David did not, then other saints of his time did not. Thus it is that Peter is made to teach that the souls of the pious dead do not ascend to heaven, but descend to the gloomy abode of Sheol, Hades, or Hell, all these terms being equivalent. This exposition of the Apostle's teaching is plausible, and if consistent with other parts of Scripture, might be accepted. But as it contradicts what the Bible clearly teaches in many other places, it must be rejected. Peter's object was to prove the Messiahship of Christ from the fact of the resurrection of his body. The essential idea of " rising from the dead " was the restoration of the body to life. The soul does not die, and is not raised. The Apostle proved that Christ's body did not see corruption, but was restored to life ; first, be- cause it was a historical fact of which he and his brethren were witnesses ; and secondly, from the prediction of the Psalmist that the Messiah was not to remain in the grave. That the sixteenth Psalm does not refer to David, he argued, because David died and was buried ; his body did see corruption ; his sepulchre remained among them ; he, his body, he, as a man composed of soul and body, had not ascended to heaven. The whole argument concerns the body ; because it is true only of the body, that it dies, is buried, sees corruption, and does not ascend to heaven. The simple meaning of Psalm xvi. 10, is that the person there spoken of was not to remain under the power of death. He was to rise from the dead before his body had time to see corruption. This is all that the passage teaches. This is true of Christ ; it was not true of David or of any of the saints who died before the ad- vent ; and it is not true of those who have died since the advent. In this respect, as in so many others, Christ stands gloriously alone.
The diflicult passage 1 Peter iii. 18, 19, however it may be in- terpreted, proves nothing against the Protestant doctrine that the souls of believers do at death immediately pass into glory. What happens to ordinary men happened to Christ when He died. His cold and lifeless body was laid in the tomb. His human soul passed into the invisible world. This is all that the creed, com- monly called the Apostle's, means, when it says Christ was buried, and descended into Hell, or Hades, the unseen world. This is