The question often comes up in even the most candid and honest minds: Why is the Pentateuch silent, or at least,so nearlysilent as to the rewards and punishments of the future life?——Moreover, there is a class of critics who are fain to decry the Hebrew people as almost contemptibly low in point of knowledge, culture, and civilization, and who are wont to deny that the Mosaic system, civil or religious, has any allusion to the future life or even assumes its existence.——From this supposedfact, they infer that the Hebrew people and even Moses himselfhad no knowledge of the future life.In briefly discussing this subject, I propose,1. To qualify somewhat the absolute statement—No allusion to the future life or assumption of its existence.2. To give some reasons for placing the Theocracy mainly on the basis of temporal rewards and punishments.3. To maintain that Moses and the patriarchs knew and believed in the future life as one of rewards and punishments.1. I propose to qualify somewhat the absolute statement—“No allusion to the future life and no assumption of its existence.”Here I call attention to the remarkable fact that there are several statuteswithout penalties—left simply upon the consciences of men and upon their sense of the fear of God.——As to those who violate the third of the ten commandments, it is simply said, “The Lord will not hold him guiltless”; but it is not intimated that any due punishment should befall him in the present life. The statutes touching this sin stand also without penalties. Correspondingly the statutes forbid perjury; but they seem to leave the sanctity of the solemn oath upon the conscience and upon men’s fear of God. So of the precept, “Thou shalt not revile the judges, nor curse the rulers of thy people” (Ex.22: 28).Now it scarcely need be suggested that human laws without penalties are mere puerilities—virtually no laws at all. Suppose under any human government, sundry statutes were left without penalties, the law saying only, “he shall bear his iniquity”; “his sin shall be upon him”: Would not the whole body of lawless, law-breaking men say in their heart, What of that? What then? Every violator of human law knows well enough that there is nothing to fearfrom itbeyond the grave. If human law will only let them have their way in this world, they would scoff at the thought ofits penaltiesin the next.——Now my point is that the Hebrew statutes did not leave the law-breaker’s conscience in this attitude. The man who scorned those statutes because they stood without penalties in this worldhad something to think of for the world to come.Those statutes, left without penalties for this life were not by any means for that reason powerless. So far from being powerless, they were in many minds more terrible than any other statutes. Was it of no account to them that God had said—“His sin shall beupon him” and “he shall bear his iniquity”? Did they not know that “it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God”—fearful, moreover, not because he might bring trouble on them in time, but because there is an after-life and the same dreadful God is there—terrible to those who have defied his authority and scorned his law?——Therefore the statement that this Hebrew code did in no manner assume the existence of an after-life and of a God terrible to the sinner there, must be somewhat modified.2.I am to assign some reasons for putting this Theocracy mainly on the basis of temporal rewards and punishments.(1.) It was to be administered chiefly by human agents. Human judges sat upon offenses against it, and human hands executed their decisions.——I qualify these statements with the words “mainly,” “chiefly,” stating this as being the casefor the most part.——The fact as to human agents being admitted, there is no need of further reasons for placing the administration of this government mainly on the basis of earthly rewards and punishments—penalties in this world, not in the next. How could human judges award judgments for the world to come, and human hands execute them there?(2.) God governed Israelas a nation, not as an individual man. Now since nations as such exist in this life only, it follows of necessity that all retribution that is trulynationalmust be in time, not in eternity. The nation as such is not known in the eternal world. The individuals that compose the nation have their own personal account to settle with God in the world to come; but this has no bearing upon the government of God over the nation. This national government must be complete in time, else it remains incomplete forever. It may run on through many human generations; national life may outlast scores of individual human lives; but God’s retribution as to nations must be administered in this world, no part lying over to the next. Hence when God made himself king in Jeshurunover the Hebrew nation, he of necessity established a government to be administered mainly in time, not in eternity; by the rewards and penalties of this world—not of the next.——This again would be in itself a sufficient reason for the fact we are accounting for, even if there were no other.(3.) This national system of government was intended to be a moral lesson for all other nations of all time. Hence the government must be put on the same basis as that of all other nationsin the point of providential retribution. As God holds every nation on earth to a positive retribution in time, giving them prosperity for their righteousness, and adversity for their violation of the common laws of humanity; and as he would fain make his administration over Israel a cogent moral lesson to every other nation on this great point, he must needs govern Israel in this respectashe governs them—i. e.administering his retributionsin time.(4.) Yet one reason more. Distinguishing carefully between God’s providential government and his moral—the former being of time only; the latter of both time and eternity; the former being (for our present purpose) over nations as such; the latter over individuals only and not over nations—it remains to say that God manifestly designed his providential government over Israel to be suggestive, perhaps we might say typical—certainly illustrative of his moral government over all men which is not of time only, but which reaches into the eternal world. In the early ages of the world men needed some proof that God would punish sin in the world to come. They needed some illustrations of God’s character as a righteous, moral governor. Therefore the Lord planned to put himself at the head of the Hebrew nation, and then in that position, to give to mankind some illustrations in this world of what all sinners are to believe and expect for themselves, not in this world only or chiefly, but in the world to come. He would make this limited government illustrate that universal one. He would show in the case of the Hebrew people under his law what all men have to expect from their righteous God when his moral government shall have had full scope and shall have administered its perfect retribution in the world to come. This divine policy is well set forth by Peter (2 Pet.2: 4–9); “For if Godspared not the angels that sinned but cast them down to hell”; and “spared not the old world, but saved Noah”; if he “turned Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, but delivered just Lot”;—then (we may infer), “theLord knoweth howto deliver the godly out of temptation, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished.” Yes, the Lordknoweth howto do this, and he means to let all living men see that he knoweth how; and see also that being a holy moral Governor, he can not fail to do it. He will give them occasion to see in his ruling over nations in time that his ruling over individual sinners can not be less righteous—can not be less retributive according to deeds done; and since equal and perfect justice calls for more time than one human life on earth, there must be an after part to it, to come in when death has located men in the eternal world.——This designed use of a theocratic government over Israel to illustrate God’s moral relations to every individual man, required an administration mainly in this world, in time, before human eyes; and is therefore another reason for working this theocracy mainly with temporal rewards and punishments.——I do not see that further reasons can be rationally called for.3. I am to rebut the inference made from the fact of a theocracy administered mostly in time,viz.that Moses and the patriarchs did not believe in or even know of a future life.(1.) The inference is utterly illogical. The rewards and penalties of the Hebrew system were of time and not of eternity,for other good and sufficient reasons, and not necessarily for the reason that the Hebrew law-giver and his people knew of no future life. To be of any force the argument must assume that if Moses had known of a future life he would have built this system upon it. But what is the proof of that? By what right is that assumed?——On the contrary there are reasons in abundance, not to say in excess—far more than would be sufficient—why the theocracy should be temporal in its penalties, whether Moses knew or did not know of a future life.(2.) That Moses and the patriarchs assumed and believed in a future life is apparent fromtheir words.Moses wrote of Enoch (Gen.5: 24); “And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for Godtookhim.” “Took him”where? Did not Moses know where? “Tookhim”—in what sense? Is it even supposable that Moses thought this was annihilation—taking a godly man out of existence? Extinguishing his being because he walked with God! Is this a credible construction? Shall it be assumed that Moses was so ignorant, or so misinformed, or so little versed in logic, as this?——If the Lord had made this problem a special study—how best to teach and impress the doctrine of a future blessed life for the righteous who walk with God on earth, we can not see how he could have improved upon the method he actually adopted,viz.to take the godly Enoch from earth to heaven without dying.Again, Moses constantly spoke of the death of the godly patriarchs as a being “gathered to their people.” He said this of Abraham (Gen.25: 8); of Ishmael (25: 17); of Isaac (35: 29); of Jacob (49: 33). And he records these as Jacob’s words when he supposed Joseph to have died: “I will go down into Sheolto my sonmourning” (37: 35).——In the face of these facts can it be said that Moses knew nothing of the future life? Did he think the fathers—the righteous people—had passed by death into non-existence—into what wasnot lifein any sense whatever?——Again, when at the bush the Lord said to Moses so solemnly: “I am the God of thy fathers; the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Ex.3: 6), is it credible that Moses was so obtuse as not to see that this implied that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were yet living, since the Lord could not be the God of dead things, but only of living souls?——A sensible view of the case may be obtained thus: Suppose that Moses had replied—“Lord, I see not how that can be, for Abraham has been dead and out of existence more than two hundred years”! If really Moses had no knowledge of a future life, he ought frankly to have made substantially this reply at the bush.(3.) In proof of their faith in the future life, is another argument, of greater force if possible than their words;viz.theirlives. For men sometimes say more than they mean, or perhaps something other than what they think; but their lives testify truthfully to theirreal beliefs.——Here we might expand the argument already suggested by the writer to the Hebrews (11: 8–16), calling up to review the actual lives of the patriarchs; how Abraham tore himself away from home and kindred, and went, obeying a call believed to be from God, to a land before unknown; how he and his family sojourned as strangers there, dwelling only in tents but “looking for a city on beyond which hath foundations whose builder and maker is God”; how they lived in the faith of promises to be fulfilled far in the future ages of time; and how by such a life they “declared plainly that they were seeking another and better country, even an heavenly” one.——But waiving this, the argument will be more directly in point if made on the case of the man Moses himself.——Born a slave, it was little of earth that he had at his birth save the faith and consequent heroism of a godly mother. In the providence of God it fell to him to be taken—a beautiful babe of three months—into the family of the reigning Pharaoh. There he lived, trained in all the wisdom of Egypt, till he was full forty years old. Of prepossessing person and splendid talents; of capacities equal to any responsibility, the honors of all Egypt lay before him—we might probably say—were pressing upon his acceptance. What did he do?——The writer to the Hebrews answers our question on this wise: “When he was come to years, he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season: esteeming reproach for Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt.”——Was not this choice and all this course of conduct unaccountably strange? Did any man in his senses,knowing nothing of the future life, ever make such a choice before or since? What! choose affliction before pleasure; reproach before the highest of earthly honors? What could be in the man to make such a choice and even carry it out in his actual life?The writer of this Epistle has an explanation to suggest. He says in the outset that Moseshad faith—a sort of faith described by himself as “the evidence of things not seen.” Quite unlike the doctrine of the critics above referred to—nay squarely in the face of their assumptions, he holds up this Moses as a specialand illustrious example of real faith in the future life. “By faithMoses refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter”; “by faithhe esteemed reproach for Christ greater riches than Egypt’s treasures—for he had respect to the recompense of the reward.” Aye, he had his eye onward upon that glorious recompense of reward which God gives his people when the joys that are transient have all faded out—when the life that is immortal dawns on the human soul. In his view the pleasures of Egypt were onlyfor a season—too short to be matched against the joys before him—fully believed in—that endure forever.Of this explanation, say what else men may of it, they must admit that it answers the purpose. It accounts for the choice Moses made of affliction before pleasure; of shame before the highest of Egypt’s honors. This explanation represents Moses to be a man of sense, and not a fool. Neological criticism holds him up to the world as void of all sense—as playing the part of supreme folly. Paul said—“If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable” (1 Cor.15: 19). He would have said of Moses, If his hope and belief as to God were of this life only—if he had no belief in the future life and no knowledge of it, then he was of all men most foolish—most void of that judgment and good sense which are common to sensible men.——Therefore I claim that thelife of Moses—the whole choice and purpose and labor of a life of one hundred and twenty years, witness to his full and glorious faith in the future life. The men who deny to him this faith stultify not Moses, but themselves.(4.) It can scarcely be necessary to suggest that over and above the logical merits of the facts themselves, we have the current traditions of Jewish history and the authority of the inspired New Testament writers. He who wrote the Epistle to the Hebrews—a man of sense as his writings show and of surpassing eloquence and power—must have spoken the current voice of Hebrew tradition—to say nothing (in an argument with Neologist critics) of his unquestionable inspiration from God.(5.) Still further, we have collateral proofs that the future life was known in the age of Moses.——Job gavea grand declaration of his faith that after the perishing of his body he should see God (Job 19: 25–27). Balaam, representing the thought of the ancient East, saw and believed in the blessedness of the righteous dead.——And to mention no more—the wise men of Egypt, even before the age of Moses, believed in the future life of man. With scarcely a doubt they built their pyramids in the faith of man’s immortality. Sepulchers with them had a special and grander significance because they thought of man, not as dropping at death into annihilation, but as having even then a future nobler life before him. It is more than supposable that the art and practice of embalming the body—thus providing for it a sort of immortality—was really an outgrowth of their belief in the immortality of the soul and of its returning again to its former bodily home.——That the Egyptians held the doctrine of a future life and of future rewards and punishments according to the deeds of this earthly life, is not questioned at all by those who are familiar with her ancient mythology. Symbolic representations are found which are affirmed to be nothing else but the personification of the grand principle of the immortality of the souland the necessity of leading a virtuouslife.47Also a picture “representing the trial and judgment which the Egyptians supposed the soul of a man to undergobefore he was allowed to enter the regions of rest andhappiness.”48——R.S. Poole (in Smith’s Bible Dictionary on “Egypt,”p.675) says: “The great doctrines of the immortality of the soul, man’s responsibility, and future rewards and punishments were taught” [in Egypt]. “The Egyptian religion in its reference to man was a system of responsibility, mainly depending on future rewards and punishments.” “Every Israelite who came out of Egypt must have been fully acquainted with the universally recognized doctrines of the immortality of the soul, man’s responsibility, and future rewards and punishments.”——Dr.J. P. Thompson, in supplementing this article on “Egypt,” refers toDr.Lepsius as having given the earliest known text of the [Egyptian] “Book of the Dead” “which contains theimportant doctrines of the immortality of the soul, the rehabilitation of the body, the judgment of both good and bad, the punishment of the wicked, the justification of the righteous and their admission to the blessed state of the gods” (p.688). See alsoBib.Sacra,Oct.1867,p.775, andJany.1869,p.190.Hence we must conclude that even if it were possible that the Hebrews had no knowledge of the future life before they went to Egypt, they must have learned it there. Really however, the fact that this doctrine appears in the oldest records of Egyptian antiquity proves that it came down from Noah—not to say from Adam. It was not indigenous and original with Egypt. It was there because Egypt had retained the primitive beliefs of the race.In concluding this argument, I refer to the allusions which appear in the Psalms to the future life (e. g.Ps.17, and 37, and 49, and 73),—which speak of it not as being then a new revelation, just sprung upon the universal darkness of all foregoing ages, but distinctly as an old doctrine, to be learned by “going into the sanctuary of God” and there hearing the old Hebrew scriptures publicly read; and also to be seen as illustrated and assumed in the records of God’s judgments in time on such sinners as those of the old world, and of Sodom, and as Egypt’s hardened king. Let it suffice here to specifyPs.73, whose author says of himself: “I was envious at the foolish when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.It was too painful for me until I went into thesanctuaryof God; then I understoodtheir end. Surely thou didst set them in slippery places; thou castedst them down into destruction.”—“But [all unliketheirdoom] thou wilt guide me with thy counsel and afterward receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee. My flesh and my heart faileth; but thou art the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”——The good men who wrote thus, and the worshiping congregations who sung these rapturous strains in their temple worship were not in utter darkness as to the final doom of the wicked, or as to the glorious future life of the righteous.In closing this volume it only remains to refer in aword to the progressive developments of God’s truth as manifest in these closing portions of the Pentateuch. Of previous points and periods in this history as developing progress I have spoken when the scenes were fresh in our reading and thought;—particularly of the age before the flood; of the scenes in the life of Jacob and Joseph; of the scenes of the Exodus and at Sinai; of the civil code and also of the religious Institutes.——The few incidents of history during the forty years of wilderness life bring us new lessons, some exceedingly instructive in regard to the intercessory prayers of Moses; many sadly painful, touching the unbelief, the murmuring, the sensuality, and the idolatrous tendencies of Israel. If it were not that apostasies from God occur in our own age, not at all less guilty considering the light sinned against, though less revolting perhaps to the current religious sentiments of the age, we might perhaps afford to pass these historic developments with little notice. Alas, that they should reveal sins of the human heart which it so much behooves us to study for our own admonition!The book of Deuteronomy is an acquisition to the moral forces of the Pentateuch. Speaking now specially of its first eleven chapters and of its last nine;i. e.of the review which Moses gives of the scenes of Sinai and of his accumulation of predicted woes and of appeals at once tender and terrible in the last chapters, it is not easy to over-estimate their moral power. Let us hope that they thrilled the very heart of that generation and toned up their religious life with impulses not only deep and strong but abiding. That generation, then about to enter Canaan under Joshua, was unquestionably the best, morally, which appears throughout the entire history of Israel. For proof of this estimate of them it must suffice to refer to the spirit manifested inJosh.1: 16–18 and in the entire scenes ofJosh.22, and indeed in the history throughout this book of Joshua.——Leaving Egypt while yet young or wilderness born; mostly uncontaminated with her idolatries and pollutions of moral life, looking upon the scenes of the Exodus and of Sinai with young eyes and susceptible souls; trained under Moses forty years; taking the ritual of religious worship in its freshness, with hearts, let us hope in a good measure tender to its first strongimpressions—they give us certainly the best fruits of this wonderful moral and religious training. So many fearers of God—so large a host imbued with the spirit of obedience to God’s authority—the world had never seen before. They were prepared of God for the conquest of Canaan. They are living witnesses that the discipline of those desert wanderings was not in vain—witnesses also to the moral and spiritual forces of the new revelations which God made of himself during those forty years from Egypt to Canaan.
The question often comes up in even the most candid and honest minds: Why is the Pentateuch silent, or at least,so nearlysilent as to the rewards and punishments of the future life?——Moreover, there is a class of critics who are fain to decry the Hebrew people as almost contemptibly low in point of knowledge, culture, and civilization, and who are wont to deny that the Mosaic system, civil or religious, has any allusion to the future life or even assumes its existence.——From this supposedfact, they infer that the Hebrew people and even Moses himselfhad no knowledge of the future life.
In briefly discussing this subject, I propose,
1. To qualify somewhat the absolute statement—No allusion to the future life or assumption of its existence.
2. To give some reasons for placing the Theocracy mainly on the basis of temporal rewards and punishments.
3. To maintain that Moses and the patriarchs knew and believed in the future life as one of rewards and punishments.
1. I propose to qualify somewhat the absolute statement—“No allusion to the future life and no assumption of its existence.”
Here I call attention to the remarkable fact that there are several statuteswithout penalties—left simply upon the consciences of men and upon their sense of the fear of God.——As to those who violate the third of the ten commandments, it is simply said, “The Lord will not hold him guiltless”; but it is not intimated that any due punishment should befall him in the present life. The statutes touching this sin stand also without penalties. Correspondingly the statutes forbid perjury; but they seem to leave the sanctity of the solemn oath upon the conscience and upon men’s fear of God. So of the precept, “Thou shalt not revile the judges, nor curse the rulers of thy people” (Ex.22: 28).
Now it scarcely need be suggested that human laws without penalties are mere puerilities—virtually no laws at all. Suppose under any human government, sundry statutes were left without penalties, the law saying only, “he shall bear his iniquity”; “his sin shall be upon him”: Would not the whole body of lawless, law-breaking men say in their heart, What of that? What then? Every violator of human law knows well enough that there is nothing to fearfrom itbeyond the grave. If human law will only let them have their way in this world, they would scoff at the thought ofits penaltiesin the next.——Now my point is that the Hebrew statutes did not leave the law-breaker’s conscience in this attitude. The man who scorned those statutes because they stood without penalties in this worldhad something to think of for the world to come.Those statutes, left without penalties for this life were not by any means for that reason powerless. So far from being powerless, they were in many minds more terrible than any other statutes. Was it of no account to them that God had said—“His sin shall beupon him” and “he shall bear his iniquity”? Did they not know that “it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God”—fearful, moreover, not because he might bring trouble on them in time, but because there is an after-life and the same dreadful God is there—terrible to those who have defied his authority and scorned his law?——Therefore the statement that this Hebrew code did in no manner assume the existence of an after-life and of a God terrible to the sinner there, must be somewhat modified.
2.I am to assign some reasons for putting this Theocracy mainly on the basis of temporal rewards and punishments.
(1.) It was to be administered chiefly by human agents. Human judges sat upon offenses against it, and human hands executed their decisions.——I qualify these statements with the words “mainly,” “chiefly,” stating this as being the casefor the most part.——The fact as to human agents being admitted, there is no need of further reasons for placing the administration of this government mainly on the basis of earthly rewards and punishments—penalties in this world, not in the next. How could human judges award judgments for the world to come, and human hands execute them there?
(2.) God governed Israelas a nation, not as an individual man. Now since nations as such exist in this life only, it follows of necessity that all retribution that is trulynationalmust be in time, not in eternity. The nation as such is not known in the eternal world. The individuals that compose the nation have their own personal account to settle with God in the world to come; but this has no bearing upon the government of God over the nation. This national government must be complete in time, else it remains incomplete forever. It may run on through many human generations; national life may outlast scores of individual human lives; but God’s retribution as to nations must be administered in this world, no part lying over to the next. Hence when God made himself king in Jeshurunover the Hebrew nation, he of necessity established a government to be administered mainly in time, not in eternity; by the rewards and penalties of this world—not of the next.——This again would be in itself a sufficient reason for the fact we are accounting for, even if there were no other.
(3.) This national system of government was intended to be a moral lesson for all other nations of all time. Hence the government must be put on the same basis as that of all other nationsin the point of providential retribution. As God holds every nation on earth to a positive retribution in time, giving them prosperity for their righteousness, and adversity for their violation of the common laws of humanity; and as he would fain make his administration over Israel a cogent moral lesson to every other nation on this great point, he must needs govern Israel in this respectashe governs them—i. e.administering his retributionsin time.
(4.) Yet one reason more. Distinguishing carefully between God’s providential government and his moral—the former being of time only; the latter of both time and eternity; the former being (for our present purpose) over nations as such; the latter over individuals only and not over nations—it remains to say that God manifestly designed his providential government over Israel to be suggestive, perhaps we might say typical—certainly illustrative of his moral government over all men which is not of time only, but which reaches into the eternal world. In the early ages of the world men needed some proof that God would punish sin in the world to come. They needed some illustrations of God’s character as a righteous, moral governor. Therefore the Lord planned to put himself at the head of the Hebrew nation, and then in that position, to give to mankind some illustrations in this world of what all sinners are to believe and expect for themselves, not in this world only or chiefly, but in the world to come. He would make this limited government illustrate that universal one. He would show in the case of the Hebrew people under his law what all men have to expect from their righteous God when his moral government shall have had full scope and shall have administered its perfect retribution in the world to come. This divine policy is well set forth by Peter (2 Pet.2: 4–9); “For if Godspared not the angels that sinned but cast them down to hell”; and “spared not the old world, but saved Noah”; if he “turned Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, but delivered just Lot”;—then (we may infer), “theLord knoweth howto deliver the godly out of temptation, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished.” Yes, the Lordknoweth howto do this, and he means to let all living men see that he knoweth how; and see also that being a holy moral Governor, he can not fail to do it. He will give them occasion to see in his ruling over nations in time that his ruling over individual sinners can not be less righteous—can not be less retributive according to deeds done; and since equal and perfect justice calls for more time than one human life on earth, there must be an after part to it, to come in when death has located men in the eternal world.——This designed use of a theocratic government over Israel to illustrate God’s moral relations to every individual man, required an administration mainly in this world, in time, before human eyes; and is therefore another reason for working this theocracy mainly with temporal rewards and punishments.——I do not see that further reasons can be rationally called for.
3. I am to rebut the inference made from the fact of a theocracy administered mostly in time,viz.that Moses and the patriarchs did not believe in or even know of a future life.
(1.) The inference is utterly illogical. The rewards and penalties of the Hebrew system were of time and not of eternity,for other good and sufficient reasons, and not necessarily for the reason that the Hebrew law-giver and his people knew of no future life. To be of any force the argument must assume that if Moses had known of a future life he would have built this system upon it. But what is the proof of that? By what right is that assumed?——On the contrary there are reasons in abundance, not to say in excess—far more than would be sufficient—why the theocracy should be temporal in its penalties, whether Moses knew or did not know of a future life.
(2.) That Moses and the patriarchs assumed and believed in a future life is apparent fromtheir words.
Moses wrote of Enoch (Gen.5: 24); “And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for Godtookhim.” “Took him”where? Did not Moses know where? “Tookhim”—in what sense? Is it even supposable that Moses thought this was annihilation—taking a godly man out of existence? Extinguishing his being because he walked with God! Is this a credible construction? Shall it be assumed that Moses was so ignorant, or so misinformed, or so little versed in logic, as this?——If the Lord had made this problem a special study—how best to teach and impress the doctrine of a future blessed life for the righteous who walk with God on earth, we can not see how he could have improved upon the method he actually adopted,viz.to take the godly Enoch from earth to heaven without dying.
Again, Moses constantly spoke of the death of the godly patriarchs as a being “gathered to their people.” He said this of Abraham (Gen.25: 8); of Ishmael (25: 17); of Isaac (35: 29); of Jacob (49: 33). And he records these as Jacob’s words when he supposed Joseph to have died: “I will go down into Sheolto my sonmourning” (37: 35).——In the face of these facts can it be said that Moses knew nothing of the future life? Did he think the fathers—the righteous people—had passed by death into non-existence—into what wasnot lifein any sense whatever?——Again, when at the bush the Lord said to Moses so solemnly: “I am the God of thy fathers; the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Ex.3: 6), is it credible that Moses was so obtuse as not to see that this implied that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were yet living, since the Lord could not be the God of dead things, but only of living souls?——A sensible view of the case may be obtained thus: Suppose that Moses had replied—“Lord, I see not how that can be, for Abraham has been dead and out of existence more than two hundred years”! If really Moses had no knowledge of a future life, he ought frankly to have made substantially this reply at the bush.
(3.) In proof of their faith in the future life, is another argument, of greater force if possible than their words;viz.theirlives. For men sometimes say more than they mean, or perhaps something other than what they think; but their lives testify truthfully to theirreal beliefs.——Here we might expand the argument already suggested by the writer to the Hebrews (11: 8–16), calling up to review the actual lives of the patriarchs; how Abraham tore himself away from home and kindred, and went, obeying a call believed to be from God, to a land before unknown; how he and his family sojourned as strangers there, dwelling only in tents but “looking for a city on beyond which hath foundations whose builder and maker is God”; how they lived in the faith of promises to be fulfilled far in the future ages of time; and how by such a life they “declared plainly that they were seeking another and better country, even an heavenly” one.——But waiving this, the argument will be more directly in point if made on the case of the man Moses himself.——Born a slave, it was little of earth that he had at his birth save the faith and consequent heroism of a godly mother. In the providence of God it fell to him to be taken—a beautiful babe of three months—into the family of the reigning Pharaoh. There he lived, trained in all the wisdom of Egypt, till he was full forty years old. Of prepossessing person and splendid talents; of capacities equal to any responsibility, the honors of all Egypt lay before him—we might probably say—were pressing upon his acceptance. What did he do?——The writer to the Hebrews answers our question on this wise: “When he was come to years, he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season: esteeming reproach for Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt.”——Was not this choice and all this course of conduct unaccountably strange? Did any man in his senses,knowing nothing of the future life, ever make such a choice before or since? What! choose affliction before pleasure; reproach before the highest of earthly honors? What could be in the man to make such a choice and even carry it out in his actual life?
The writer of this Epistle has an explanation to suggest. He says in the outset that Moseshad faith—a sort of faith described by himself as “the evidence of things not seen.” Quite unlike the doctrine of the critics above referred to—nay squarely in the face of their assumptions, he holds up this Moses as a specialand illustrious example of real faith in the future life. “By faithMoses refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter”; “by faithhe esteemed reproach for Christ greater riches than Egypt’s treasures—for he had respect to the recompense of the reward.” Aye, he had his eye onward upon that glorious recompense of reward which God gives his people when the joys that are transient have all faded out—when the life that is immortal dawns on the human soul. In his view the pleasures of Egypt were onlyfor a season—too short to be matched against the joys before him—fully believed in—that endure forever.
Of this explanation, say what else men may of it, they must admit that it answers the purpose. It accounts for the choice Moses made of affliction before pleasure; of shame before the highest of Egypt’s honors. This explanation represents Moses to be a man of sense, and not a fool. Neological criticism holds him up to the world as void of all sense—as playing the part of supreme folly. Paul said—“If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable” (1 Cor.15: 19). He would have said of Moses, If his hope and belief as to God were of this life only—if he had no belief in the future life and no knowledge of it, then he was of all men most foolish—most void of that judgment and good sense which are common to sensible men.——Therefore I claim that thelife of Moses—the whole choice and purpose and labor of a life of one hundred and twenty years, witness to his full and glorious faith in the future life. The men who deny to him this faith stultify not Moses, but themselves.
(4.) It can scarcely be necessary to suggest that over and above the logical merits of the facts themselves, we have the current traditions of Jewish history and the authority of the inspired New Testament writers. He who wrote the Epistle to the Hebrews—a man of sense as his writings show and of surpassing eloquence and power—must have spoken the current voice of Hebrew tradition—to say nothing (in an argument with Neologist critics) of his unquestionable inspiration from God.
(5.) Still further, we have collateral proofs that the future life was known in the age of Moses.——Job gavea grand declaration of his faith that after the perishing of his body he should see God (Job 19: 25–27). Balaam, representing the thought of the ancient East, saw and believed in the blessedness of the righteous dead.——And to mention no more—the wise men of Egypt, even before the age of Moses, believed in the future life of man. With scarcely a doubt they built their pyramids in the faith of man’s immortality. Sepulchers with them had a special and grander significance because they thought of man, not as dropping at death into annihilation, but as having even then a future nobler life before him. It is more than supposable that the art and practice of embalming the body—thus providing for it a sort of immortality—was really an outgrowth of their belief in the immortality of the soul and of its returning again to its former bodily home.——That the Egyptians held the doctrine of a future life and of future rewards and punishments according to the deeds of this earthly life, is not questioned at all by those who are familiar with her ancient mythology. Symbolic representations are found which are affirmed to be nothing else but the personification of the grand principle of the immortality of the souland the necessity of leading a virtuouslife.47Also a picture “representing the trial and judgment which the Egyptians supposed the soul of a man to undergobefore he was allowed to enter the regions of rest andhappiness.”48——R.S. Poole (in Smith’s Bible Dictionary on “Egypt,”p.675) says: “The great doctrines of the immortality of the soul, man’s responsibility, and future rewards and punishments were taught” [in Egypt]. “The Egyptian religion in its reference to man was a system of responsibility, mainly depending on future rewards and punishments.” “Every Israelite who came out of Egypt must have been fully acquainted with the universally recognized doctrines of the immortality of the soul, man’s responsibility, and future rewards and punishments.”——Dr.J. P. Thompson, in supplementing this article on “Egypt,” refers toDr.Lepsius as having given the earliest known text of the [Egyptian] “Book of the Dead” “which contains theimportant doctrines of the immortality of the soul, the rehabilitation of the body, the judgment of both good and bad, the punishment of the wicked, the justification of the righteous and their admission to the blessed state of the gods” (p.688). See alsoBib.Sacra,Oct.1867,p.775, andJany.1869,p.190.
Hence we must conclude that even if it were possible that the Hebrews had no knowledge of the future life before they went to Egypt, they must have learned it there. Really however, the fact that this doctrine appears in the oldest records of Egyptian antiquity proves that it came down from Noah—not to say from Adam. It was not indigenous and original with Egypt. It was there because Egypt had retained the primitive beliefs of the race.
In concluding this argument, I refer to the allusions which appear in the Psalms to the future life (e. g.Ps.17, and 37, and 49, and 73),—which speak of it not as being then a new revelation, just sprung upon the universal darkness of all foregoing ages, but distinctly as an old doctrine, to be learned by “going into the sanctuary of God” and there hearing the old Hebrew scriptures publicly read; and also to be seen as illustrated and assumed in the records of God’s judgments in time on such sinners as those of the old world, and of Sodom, and as Egypt’s hardened king. Let it suffice here to specifyPs.73, whose author says of himself: “I was envious at the foolish when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.It was too painful for me until I went into thesanctuaryof God; then I understoodtheir end. Surely thou didst set them in slippery places; thou castedst them down into destruction.”—“But [all unliketheirdoom] thou wilt guide me with thy counsel and afterward receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee. My flesh and my heart faileth; but thou art the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”——The good men who wrote thus, and the worshiping congregations who sung these rapturous strains in their temple worship were not in utter darkness as to the final doom of the wicked, or as to the glorious future life of the righteous.
In closing this volume it only remains to refer in aword to the progressive developments of God’s truth as manifest in these closing portions of the Pentateuch. Of previous points and periods in this history as developing progress I have spoken when the scenes were fresh in our reading and thought;—particularly of the age before the flood; of the scenes in the life of Jacob and Joseph; of the scenes of the Exodus and at Sinai; of the civil code and also of the religious Institutes.——The few incidents of history during the forty years of wilderness life bring us new lessons, some exceedingly instructive in regard to the intercessory prayers of Moses; many sadly painful, touching the unbelief, the murmuring, the sensuality, and the idolatrous tendencies of Israel. If it were not that apostasies from God occur in our own age, not at all less guilty considering the light sinned against, though less revolting perhaps to the current religious sentiments of the age, we might perhaps afford to pass these historic developments with little notice. Alas, that they should reveal sins of the human heart which it so much behooves us to study for our own admonition!
The book of Deuteronomy is an acquisition to the moral forces of the Pentateuch. Speaking now specially of its first eleven chapters and of its last nine;i. e.of the review which Moses gives of the scenes of Sinai and of his accumulation of predicted woes and of appeals at once tender and terrible in the last chapters, it is not easy to over-estimate their moral power. Let us hope that they thrilled the very heart of that generation and toned up their religious life with impulses not only deep and strong but abiding. That generation, then about to enter Canaan under Joshua, was unquestionably the best, morally, which appears throughout the entire history of Israel. For proof of this estimate of them it must suffice to refer to the spirit manifested inJosh.1: 16–18 and in the entire scenes ofJosh.22, and indeed in the history throughout this book of Joshua.——Leaving Egypt while yet young or wilderness born; mostly uncontaminated with her idolatries and pollutions of moral life, looking upon the scenes of the Exodus and of Sinai with young eyes and susceptible souls; trained under Moses forty years; taking the ritual of religious worship in its freshness, with hearts, let us hope in a good measure tender to its first strongimpressions—they give us certainly the best fruits of this wonderful moral and religious training. So many fearers of God—so large a host imbued with the spirit of obedience to God’s authority—the world had never seen before. They were prepared of God for the conquest of Canaan. They are living witnesses that the discipline of those desert wanderings was not in vain—witnesses also to the moral and spiritual forces of the new revelations which God made of himself during those forty years from Egypt to Canaan.