reason why we do
not live eternally in the world with our present organization, and
the Rationalist asserting that the apostle never employs the word
"death" except with a purely interior signification are alike
beset by insuperable difficulties, perplexed by passages which
defy their fair analysis and force them either to use a violent
interpretation or to confess their ignorance.

We must therefore seek out some third view, which, rejecting the
errors, shall combine the truths and supply the defects of the two
former. We have now to present such a view, a theory of the
Pauline doctrine of the last things which obviously explains and
fills out all the related language of the epistles. We suppose he
unfolded it fully in his preaching, while in his supplementary and
personal letters he only alludes to such disconnected parts of it
as then rose upon his thoughts. A systematic development of it as
a whole, with copious allusions and labored defences, was not
needed then, as it might seem to us to have been. For the
fundamental notions on which it rested were the common belief of
the nation and age. Geology and astronomy had not disturbed the
credit of a definitely located Hades and heaven, nor had free
metaphysics sharpened the common mind to skeptical queries. The
view itself, as we conceive it occupied the mind of Paul, is this.
Death was a part of the creative plan for us from the first,
simply loosing the spirit from its corruptible body, clothing it
with an ethereal vehicle, and immediately translating it to
heaven. Sin marred this plan, alienated us from the Divine favor,
introduced all misery, physical and moral, and doomed the soul,
upon the fall of its earthly house, to descend into the slumberous
gloom of the under world. Thus death was changed from a pleasant
organic fulfilment and deliverance, spiritual investiture and
heavenly ascent, to a painful punishment condemning the naked
ghost to a residence below the grave. As Ewald says, through
Adam's sin "death acquired its significance as pain and
punishment."4 Herein is the explanation of the word "death" as
used by Paul in reference to the consequence of Adam's offence.
Christ came to reveal the free grace and gift of God in redeeming
us from our doom and restoring our heavenly destiny. This he
exemplified, in accordance with the Father's will, by dying,
descending into the dreary world of the dead, vanquishing the
forces there, rising thence, and ascending