$52. THE KEYS OF HELL AND OF DEATH.

CHRIST says, 'I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.' Rev. 1: 18. One who has the key of an enclosure, has the command of it, and can release those who are held captive in it. The evident import of the above words, is, that Christ, by his death and resurrection, has obtained the command of the two enclosures denominated hell and death, so that he has power to release their prisoners. The word translated hell, is hades in the original, and simply signifies the abode of the dead. In 1 Cor. 15: 55 it is translated grave, which, if it is understood as referring to spirits instead of bodies, is a better rendering than hell. Hades is not necessarily a place of punishment, as hell is usually understood to be.

Paul says, Christ both died and rose and revived that he might be Lord both of the dead and the living.' Rom. 14: 9. We regard this as entirely parellel to the former text. It declares the effect of Christ's death and resurrection. That effect is the acquirement of the command of the two great departments of humanity, the living and the dead. To be the Lord of the living and the dead, is the same thing as to have the keys of hades and of death. Hades is the enclosure of the dead; and by having its key, Christ is Lord of the dead. It follows then that death is the enclosure of the living. This will not seem incongruous if we substitute for death, the word mortality. This world is properly the world of mortality. Through fear of death men are all their lifetime subject to bondage.' They are always exposed to death. Their life is in fact a protracted death. When they are dead they pass out of the enclosure of mortality into a state that is not exposed to death. The 'king of terrors' reigns over this world only-not over hades.

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This interpretation of the words death and hell will be confirmed by reference to another parallel passage, viz. 1 Cor. 15: 51-55. Paul says, We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed; in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.' Here we have a predicted manifestation of the fact that Christ is Lord of both the living and the dead-that he has the keys of hades and mortality. In raising the dead, he would prove that he had the key of hades; in changing the living from a mortal to an immortal state, he would prove that he had the key of mortality, and could release its prisoners. Accordingly Paul, in view of this twofold manifestation of Christ's Lordship, breaks forth in exultation thus: O death, where is thy sting? O hades, where is thy victory?' The designations here given to the two great enclosures which Christ was to open at his coming, are the very same with those in the passage first cited, Rev. 1: 18. As Christ says he has the key of death, so Paul exclaims O death where is thy sting?' with manifest reference to the predicted defeat of death by the change of the living saints. As Christ says he has the key of hades, so Paul exclaims, O hades, where is thy victory? with manifest reference to the release of the dead.

It is plainly implied in the fact that Christ obtained the keys of mortality and hades by his death and resurrection, that these enclosures, or rather the one great enclosure in which they are subdivisions, had never before been opened. If any of the human race ever came out of the death-and-hades prison, before Christ obtained its key,-if there was any other way than through the door which his death and resurrection opened, by which men might 'climb up' into heaven, what need was there of his obtaining the key at such a cost?

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Men had indeed passed and repassed from one of the great apartments to the other, in various ways, before the advent of Christ. natural death, the mass of mankind had been from the beginning of the world successively passing from mortality into hades. In two instances at leastthose of Enoch and Elijah-this transit had taken place by a miraculous process without natural death. There is no evidence that these persons passed into any other abode than that which is common to the dead. The only peculiarity in their case was the extraordinary manner of the passage. On the other hand, in a few instances, such as that of Lazarus, the dead had returned from hades into mortality. They did not rise from the dead in any such sense as that in which the dead were to rise at the coming of Christ; for they resumed their mortal bodies, and therefore only re-entered the enclosure of mortality.

There is then no evidence, either from the cases of those who were translated, or of those who were raised to life, that the door of the death-and-hades prison was ever opened till Christ obtained the key. On the other hand, there is abundant evidence that all men, previous to the death and resurrection of Christ, were detained, either in mortality or in hades. We will rest the case for the present on two texts, viz., the words of Christ-No man hath ascended up to heaven,' (John 3: 13,) and the words of Peter-David is not ascended into the heavens.' Acts 2: 34. Mr. Bush rejects the natural meaning of these texts, and reduces them to mere denials of a public, official and glorious ascension, like that of Christ.' This gloss is wholly unauthorised. Indeed we see not why Mr. Bush should conceive that he has any occasion for it; for he himself teaches in one of the extracts which we have cited in the preceding article, that the Old Testament saints were detained in a state of imperfect happiness' called paradise, and were not in heaven' previous to the resurrection of Christ. So that whether these texts teach the doctrine or not, he admits, for aught that we can see, that no man had ascended to heaven at the time they were uttered.

But it can be shown that Peter, in saying that David had not ascended into the heavens,' meant that he was still in hades. The reader will observe that the leading promise which Peter is commenting upon in the passage in question, is that contained in the 27th verse-Thou wilt not leave my soul in hades, neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption.' This, he insists, must be applied to Christ, because the facts in David's case do not admit of its application to him. What are the facts? Obviously these, viz: David is dead and buried, and has never risen from the dead and ascended into heaven. (See ver. 29.) This state of things in the case of David stands

opposed to both parts of the promise. His soul is left in hades, and his flesh has seen corruption. In another discourse, where Paul argues from this promise in the same way, (see Acts 13: 35-37,) he quotes only the last part of it, Thou shalt not suffer thine holy one to see corruption,' and then shows that it cannot be applied to David, by simply affirming that he 'saw corruption.' But Peter quotes the whole of it, and affirms by plain implication, not only that David's body had seen corruption, but that his soul was left in hades, inasmuch as he had not ascended into the heavens. It is unquestionable that the Jews in Peter's time did believe that all the dead were in hades, awaiting the resurrection of the last day; and in his argument on the promise in question, he manifestly assumed this, as well as the fact that David's body saw corruption. (See Jahn's Archæology, $314, $318.)

In affirming that the Old Testament saints had not ascended to heaven, but were detained in hades till the resurrection of Christ, we are not to be understood as denying their ultimate salvation, or as teaching that they went to hell, in the English sense of that word. The paradise into which Christ and the thief went on the day of their death, is, as Mr. Bush suggests, in hades. In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, we perceive that Abraham, though he was in the same world with the tormented sinner, was in a very different region of that world, and in a very different state.

The Bible almost uniformly characterizes the condition of the inhabitants of hades, as a state of sleep. (See Dan. 12: 2, 1 Cor. 15: 51, &c.) It is not to be inferred from this, that they are in a state of literal dormancy or unconsciousness, for we have positive evidence to the contrary. The meaning is, that as a person, in ordinary sleep, is withdrawn from the world of sense, and exercises his consciousness and activity, so far as he has any, in an inward subjective sphere, so the dead are withdrawn from the material world, and exercise their consciousness and activity in a sphere which, with reference to the material world, is inward and subjective. They are in the soul of the universe, instead of the body. Their operation on the surface ceases at death. Their sleep is opposed to the visible activity of this world, and opposed to the perfect activity of the final resurrection. Christ, as well as the rest of the dead, may be said to have been asleep while he was in hades. His activity in this world ceased. But when he arose out of hades and ascended to the Father, he assumed the government of heaven and earth, i. e., entered upon a career of activity in both an inward and an outward sphere. So the saints, while they are in hades, are asleep as being confined to an inward sphere; but when they come forth into the resurrection, they become active again in the outward as well as the inward world.

They are said to sleep in the dust of the earth,' because their abode, happy though it be, is not in heaven, but in hades, which is the inner region of the world of matter, and accordingly is called 'the lower parts of the earth,' (Eph. 4: 9,) and the heart of the earth.' Matt. 12: 40. It is in this sense also that they are said to be in their graves.' John 5: 28.

Now we hold with Mr. Bush, that the resurrection has nothing to do with corrupted material bodies, and that the dead enter into hades and exist there in those spiritual bodies which are to be raised. But is this the resurrection?

Is the mere possession of spiritual bodies, or the disengagement of those bo dies from their earthly tenements, or the mere natural vitality of those bodies without reference to the quickening of God or to the sphere in which they exist, to be considered a rising from the dead? We say, No. The inner body, or what Mr B. calls the spiritual germ,' may be conceived to enter a state at death, not a whit more favorable to its vitality than the atmosphere of this world The quickning of the seed depends not upon its own capability of germinating, but on the soil and atmosphere into which it falls, on the sunshine and rain which are sent upon it. All the evidence we have on the subject goes to prove that hades is no more favorable to the quickening of spiritual bodies, than this world. Mortality and hades are classed together in the Bible as twin-states, equally remote from the world of resurrection-life. All the inhabitants of hades, the wicked as well as the righteous, are alive, have consciousness and activity, and in this sense are in an anastasis. They are not dead in the Sadduccan sense of non-existence. The righteous in hades doubtless have a degree of spiritual life, corresponding to that of the saints in this world under the Jewish dispensation, and in their condition are raised far above the wicked. In this special sense they may be said to be in an anastasis, i. e. they stand up from the miserable state of those in Gehenna. We are inclined to think that Christ had this kind of anastasis in view when he proposed Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to the Sadducees as instances of a resurrection. They might be said to be in a resurrection, just as believers in this world are, but not in THE resurrection.

What then is THE resurrection? We may find an answer to this question by tracing the process of Christ's rising. When he died, his spiritual body was disengaged from its material tenement, and he entered hades. He was in the heart of the earth' three days. Now, according to Mr. B's theory, he rose from the dead as soon as he died, and was in the true resurrection during those three days! Is this the Bible account? Not at all. After three days hades gave him up, because it was not possible that he should be holden of it.' Here commenced his resurrection. The first step of his ascent was a rising out of that world where Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were→ nay, out of paradise itself, for that is a part of hades! This was not a mere disengagement of his spiritual body from its earthly vehicle, but a change of worlds, a disengagement of his spiritual body and his soul from the place where men sleep in the dust of the earth.' The process did not end here. had ascended out of hades and had got its key. But he had returned to his material body, and to the sphere in which it dwelt, i. e. to mortality. It remained for him to burst the barriers of this world and ascend to the Father. The life which hades could not hold, was strong enough to change his material body and assimilate it to the spiritual, as was proved by his assuming invisibility and entering apartments whose doors were shut, at will. Finally earth could not hold him, and he ascended to the bosom of God.*

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*We judge that this was the order in which he obtained the command of the two great enclosures, from the peculiar phraseology of Rom. 14: 9. 'Christ both died, and rose, and revived, [i. e. lived again,] that he might be Lord both of the dead and the living. As it was his death that gave him the command of the dead, so it appears from this language, that it was his rising and living again, und not his life before death, that

Now the reader will observe, that this stupendous transaction was not a mere subjective change, a development of Christ's individual vitality accor ding to the ordinary laws of germination, as Mr. Bush's theory would make it. Here is a translation, first from hades to this world, and then from this world to the presence of God—a vast change of condition as well as of vitality. The scriptures constantly ascribe it not to any natural law, but to the mighty power of God.' This is a specimen of the universal resurrection which goes before the judgment. Hades and mortality gave up many' of their dead at the second coming of Christ; and shall give up all their dead at the voice of the seventh trumpet. See Rev. 20: 12, 13.

We may facilitate our conceptions of the resurrection which is to result from the resurrection of Christ, and of its distinction from all previous partial anastases, by an illustration. Suppose hades and mortality to be two apart ments on the same floor of a house. Heaven, or the place of God's presence, is the story above. Now the resurrection is not a transit from one of the lower apartments to the other, even though that transit is made miraculously, as in the case of Enoch and Elijah: nor is it a return to one of these apartments, after having left it, as in the case of Lazarus: but it is an ascent from both of them to the upper story, which never took place till Christ- the firstborn from the dead'-led the way.

This ascent out of hades and mortality, so far as the change is objective, is the destiny of the wicked as well as the righteous. The same mighty power that brought again Christ from hades, will at last draw all men unto him.' John 12: 32. The dead small and great must stand before God; and for that purpose death and hell must give them up. The paradise of hades is not the final home of the righteous. They are to be brought up to judgment, and thence pass into the kingdom of the Father. So the gehienna of hades is not the final home of the wicked. They too are to be brought up to judgment, and thence pass into the lake of fire.

gave him the command of the living. The order of the words in Rev. 1: 18, favors the same view: 'I am he that liveth, and was dead, &c.; and have the keys of hades and of death.' Hades stands first. So in 1 Thess. 4: 16, the power of his resurrection takes effect first on the dead and then on the living,