Biblical Psychology

(b) Startling Scriptures. Jer. 1:5; Mat 3:1; Roni 9: 11, 13; Luke 1: 41.

N. B. Note the pre-existence of our Lord Jesus Christ. John 17:5.

(a) Satisfaction of the Soul. Ps. 66: 9, 12, 16; Isa. 55: 3.

(b) Sins and Surroundings of the Soul. Prov. 18: 7; Psa. 6; Ezek. 18:4; 1 Pet. 1:9.

(c) Supernatural Setting for the Soul. Luke 9: 54, 56; Eph. 6: 12; 1 Cor. 10:20, 21.

(b) Immortal Aspect of the Soul. Luke 16: 25, 26; 23: 43.

(c) "Eternal Life" of the Soul, and "Eternal Death7' of the Soul. Matt 10: 28; Rom. 5: 21; 6: 23.

N. B. The peculiar error of "Soul Sleep" will be examined. Also "Larger Hope" and "Conditional Immortality" will be considered.

N. B. Facts of sleeping, waking and dreaming will be presented and analyzed.

In concluding our general survey of the great theme of the Soul, we purpose to sketch in outline the past, present and future state of the soul. 1. Preexistence. The speculation that souls existed in a former world. The student cannot be too careful about (a) speculation, for there is no book which lends itself more readily to speculation than the Bible, and yet the Bible warns against speculation. By speculation we mean taking a series of facts and weaving all kinds of fancies round them. In Deuteronomy 29:29 and Revelation 5:3 the bounds where human knowledge goes with regard to Bible revelation and where it stops, are fairly well marked. For instance, what is revealed in God's Book is for us; and what is not revealed is not for us; speculation means we go into what is not revealed, and the whole subject of pre-existence, as it is popularly taught to-day, is not revealed in God's Book; it is speculation based on certain things said in God's Book. Theosophy largely lends itself to this sort of thing, and theosophy and occult speculations are all ultimately dangerous to the mental, moral and spiritual balance. Speculate if you care to, but do not teach it as a revelation contained in the Bible.

It has already been said that the Bible does not teach pre-existence, yet we have (b) some startling Scriptures which appear to contradict that statement. ( Jer 1:5; Mai. 3:1; Rom. 9: 11-13; Luke 1: 41.) We have called these startling Scriptures for the obvious reason that they look as if the Bible did teach pre-existence. There is what we may term a false and a true preexistence. False pre-existence, as already stated, is that we existed as human souls before we came into this world. The true pre-existence is in God's mind. This is not an easy subject to state, but it is a subject which is revealed in Scripture — the pre-existence in God's mind of what appears in this order of things, not only in a general way, not only by the great big fact of the human race, but right down to individual lives. Individual lives are expressions of a pre-existing idea in the mind of God. That is the true preexistence. You may call it ideal, or call it what you like, but ttiere it is revealed in God's Book. In the few passages given, and in a great many more, the true pre-existing idea is clearly manifest in the divine mind.

One more thing with regard to individual spiritual experience, and that is, that our individual lives ought to be, and can be manifest answers to the ideas in God's mind. " Man's goings are of the Lord; how then can he understand his ways?" and it gives a lofty dignity, as well as a great carefulness to human lives. "We have it beautifully expressed in the life of our Lord in a way that is becoming very familiar to us — He never worked from His right to Himself, He never performed any miracle because He wanted to express what an able Being He was; He never spoke any doctrine because He wanted to show how wonderfully able His insight into God's truth was; He never did anything from Himself; He always did it from His Father. [At the foot of the outline is a note about the pre-existence of our Lord. (John 17:5.) That pre-existence is quite different from the phase of pre-existence just mentioned. This is the existence of the Being known before He came here, and the reason of His being here is explained by what He was before He came here. This is the only case of the pre-existence of a person in a former life. The Bible, then, nowhere teaches that individuals existed in a world before they came here. The true existence is the existence in the Divine mind.]

Then take (c) the steadying Scriptures, by which I mean those that hold our minds to some steady line of interpretation.

(1) No "Soul" before the body. (Gen. 1 and 2.) The Bible reveals that the soul in the CREATION of man came second, not first. The body existed before the soul in creation, so you cannot trace the history or the destiny of a human soul before the human race. •.That is the first main general line of revelation. There you have a splendid example of the pre-existence that is true God deliberately said what was in His mind before He created the body of man — "Let us make man in our own image," the pre-existence of Adam in the mind of God.

(2) No "Soul" destiny pre-Adamic. (Rom. 5: 12.) The soul destiny here begins with the human race, not before it. Some may say we believe that there was no soul before body in the first creation; but what about ourselves? Take any passage that deals with individual destiny — Ezekiel 18, for instance — and you will find that destiny is determined in the life- time of that individual soul. Transmigration speculations are all alien to the Bible teaching.

(3) No -"Soul" but by pro-creation. That is that we are not created direct by the hand of the Almighty as Adam was. We are pro-created, generated, and our body, soul and spirit come together in embryo, as related elsewhere.

All these speculations come right down to our lives In a very enticing manner. Telepathy is the especially enticing way that this speculation of transmigration and pre-existence introduces itself to our minds. Now telepathy simply means being able to discern some one else's thought by my own. Immediately you get there, you have the line of auto-suggestion, and if one man can suggest thoughts to another man, then Satan can do the same thing, and the consciousness of it on the human side opens the mind to it diabolically. Why we mention telepathy is because all these things come right down to us in the most harmless phases. Spiritualism comes to us in the way of palmistry, reading fortunes in teacups, or in cards, planchette, etc. People say there is no harm in that. There is all the harm and "backing up" of the devil behind the whole thing. Nothing awakens the curiosity quicker than reading fortunes in tea-cups, and nothing will awaken insatiable curiosity like reading fortunes by cards. The same thing with all these theosophic speculations; they come right down on the line of things that have been wrongly called by the name of " psychology.' '

2. Present Existence. Here we come down on to plain, simple ground where we are at home. In the last chapter you remember we dealt with something of the nature of the complex characteristics of the soul, perplexing and whirling and confusing the more you think of them. When you begin to think of the possibilities of the human soul, there is no clear thought possible, at first. We come now to all the possibilities and capacities of the soul. Can these be satisfied here? The Bible says they can; the whole claim of the salvation of Jesus Christ is that the Spirit of God can satisfy our human soul's last aching abyss, and not hereafter only, but here and now. Satisfaction does not mean stagnation; it means the knowledge that I have gotten to the right type of life for my soul.

(a) Satisfaction of the Soul. (Psa. 66:9, 12, 16; Isa. 55:3.) These are simply indications of innumerable passages in God's Book which go to prove that the complex soul which we have been facing can be satisfied and placed in perfect harmony with itself and with God in this present existence. To think that the human soul can fulfill the whole predestined purpose of God, is a great thought. It can be stagnated by ignorance; when we begin we are content to be ignorant; we do not know the capabilities of our lives; when we begin to get conviction of sin, we understand the awful, unfathomable depths of our lives; and the claim of the Bible is that God can satisfy this abyss; and every one who knows first of all, what his human soul is capable of, the possibilities and terrors of it, and knows also that Jesus Christ can satisfy that soul, will bear equal testimony with the written Word of God that He can satisfy the living soul in the present. Isaiah 55:3 is our Lord's message to the age we live in. "We must bear in mind that the devil does satisfy, for a time. Read Psalm 73: " Their eyes stand out with fatness, they have all that heart can desire." "They have no changes, and they do not fear God," says another Psalm.

(b) Sins and Surroundings of the Soul. (We are not taking all the passages given in the chart, only one or two to indicate the line of thought.) Psalm 6; this refers to the surroundings of the soul with regard to bodily sickness and perplexity, and the inward results. The first degree of prayer is, "Heal me for my bones are vexed." The second degree is, "Heal me for my soul is also sore vexed," and the third degree is, "Save me for Thy mercy's sake." There are three degrees of pain in the soul arising from its surroundings, (1) perplexity because of pain, (2) because its mental outlook is cloudy, and (3) because God has not said a word. When you get the body perplexed (and you certainly will if you are going on with God — because you are a mark for Satan), and when the sudden onslaught comes, as it did for instance in Job's life, you will cry, "Heal me because of my pain," and there is no answer. "Heal me, not because I am in pain, but my soul is perplexed, I cannot see any way out of it why this thing should be; " still no answer. c c Heal me, 0 Lord, not because of my pain, not because my soul is sick, but for Thy sake." These surroundings of the soul, the scenes that arise from our doings, produce perplexity and danger to the soul; you cannot separate your soul from your body, and the bodily perplexities produce difficulties, and the difficulties go inward and at times intrude right to the very throne of God in your heart.

(Ezek. 18: 4.) In this passage the connection of the soul life and sin that is punished, is clearly stated. The disposition of sin inherited is to be cleansed, but every sin I commit I am punished for. (1 Pet. 1:9.) That word salvation refers to the whole " gamut7 ' of a man, spirit, soul and body; Christ the firstfruits, with the ultimate reach in the hereafter of spirit, soul and body like His in a totally new relationship. The soul in the present life is satisfied in all perplexities, and in all onslaughts and dangers is kept by the power of God. Sins destroy the power of the soul to kn-ow its sins, punishment brings awakening, and self-examination brings chastisement and saves the soul from sleeping sickness, and brings it into healthy satisfaction. (1 Cor. 11: 31.)

Now about (c) the supernatural side of the souPs life. (Luke 9:54-56.) These men had known enough of the Lord Jesus Christ to know that He had intimacy with supernatural powers, and it is quite possible to scathe sin and serve your own self at the same time, as they did, doing right in fhe wrong spirit. [These were the very men who, a little while afterwards, asked that they might be placed one on the right hand and the other on the left; and one of them (see Acts 8) was sent down by God to Samaria, where he realized what the fire was that God was going to send, the fire of the Holy Ghost.]

(Eph. 6:12.) That has not to do with what we consider our body side of things, it has to do with the supernatural. We are surrounded immediately by powers and forces which we cannot discern physically.

(1 Cor. 10:20, 21.) You will always know your spiritually minded Christians by their attitude to the supernatural. For instance, the modern attitude to demon possession is instructive. So many take the attitude that there is no such thing as demon possession, inferring that Jesus Christ Himself knew quite well that there was no such thing; not seeing that by such an attitude they put themselves in the place of the superior person, and claim to know all the private opinions of the Almighty about iniquity. Jesus unquestionably did believe in the fact of demon possession. The New Testament is full from beginning to end of the supernatural. Jesus Christ continually looked on scenery we do not see; He continually saw and understood supernatural forces and persons at work. "Test the spirits whether they be of God or men." The soul of man may be vastly complicated by interference from the supernatural, but Jesus Christ can guard us here.

Sickness, natural and demoniacal. "We mean by natural the sickness that has come about by natural causes, not by the interference of any supernatural force. The second arise when certain organs of the body are infested by demons. Read the records of our Lord casting out demons. He said sometimes, "Come out, thou dumb and deaf demon;" again He said nothing about demons to other deaf and dumb people as He healed them. You will find all through God's Book references to demoniacal sickness, where certain organs of the body are possessed, and Jesus in addressing them mentions the particular organ. The third kind of sickness is instanced in the man of 6adara who was possessed by a legion of demons, not only in organs but all through his body. (How much room does thought take up? None! How many thoughts can I have in my brain? Why, countless! How much room does a spiritual personality take up? How many personalities may be in one body? Take the man of Gadara, Jesus said, "How many are ye?" "Legion!") The other case is that of Judas, the identification of a human soul with the devil himself. Just as a man may become identified with the Lord Jesus Christ, so he can be identified with the devil. Just as a man can be born again into the kingdom where Jesus lives and moves and has His being, and become identified with Him by entire sanctification, so a man can be born again, so to speak, into the devil's kingdom, and can be entirely consecrated to the devil. "Satan entered into Judas." Jesus said, "Have not I chosen twelve, and one of you is a devil?" The subject awakens tremendous terrors, but these are facts revealed in God's Book. There are natural sicknesses and supernatural sicknesses of the human soul and body in this present life, and Jesus Christ can deal with them all, natural or supernatural.

(a) The Mortal Aspect of the Soul. (Job 14:2; Jas. 4: 14.) "We mean by mortal, only in this order of things. You will find all through God's Book that the soul and the presence of a man as he appears just now is described as mortal in one aspect. The soul is the holder of the body and spirit together, and when the spirit has gone back to God who gave it, the soul goes with the body. But in the resurrection there is another body, a glorified body, a body impossible to describe in words, either a glorified or a damnation body, and instantly you have the soul life manifested again. (See John 5: 28, 29.) We have a picture of the resurrected damned body, yet our Lord states the fact. We have a picture of the resurrected glorified body of the saints in the resurrected body of our Lord. (Phil. 3: 21.) The soul life, then, is entirely dependent on the body. The indelible characteristics of the individual are in his spirit, and our Lord, who became the firstfruits, was spirit, soul and body. Therefore resurrection is not of spirit — personality — (that never dies) but of body and soul. God raises an incorruptible glorified body like unto His own, " every man in his own regiment' ' and Jesus Christ leading. Just as during those forty resurrection days, our Lord's glorified body could materialize, so will ours be able to in the "day" yet to be. In Luke 16: 25-29, reference is made to the resurrection of damnation, and the resurrection to eternal life. If the mortal aspect is strong in the Bible, the immortal aspect (b) is just as strong. The annihilationists build all their teaching on what we have said just now; they give proof after proof that the soul and body are mortal, and that the only person who is everlasting is the person who is born again of the Spirit; but the Bible says there is everlasting damnation as well as everlasitng life. Nothing can be annihilated. "Destroy" never means "annihilate ' ' in Scripture language. Our soul is mortal in this present bodily aspect, but it is immortal in another aspect of God's truth, for He sees soul in its final connection with spirit in resurrection. Luke 16: 25, 26 and Luke 23: 43 both have reference to the state immediately after death, and reveal that the spirit of a man, the personality of a man, never sleeps, and never dies in the sense that his body and soul do. Here the "soul sleep" heresy creeps in. The Bible nowhere says the soul sleeps. The Bible referring to this order of things reveals the body as asleep, but never the personality. The Lord Jesus emphatically showed that the second after death, unhindered consciousness is the state.

(c) Eternal Life and Eternal Death. (Matt. 10: 28; Rom. 5: 21; 6: 23.) We have no more ground for saying there is eternal life than we have for saying there is eternal death. If Jesus Christ meant by eternal life, unending conscious knowledge of God ever increasing, then eternal death is never-ending conscious separation from God. The destruction of a soul in Hades or Hell is the destruction of the last strand of likeness to God. Mark uses a very strange word, he says "salted by fire," preserved in eternal death.

Romans 8:6 t-eHs us w4ia«t eternal death is — "carnal mindedness." Those verses on death and life are easily solvable. The people who say that eternal damnation is not personal, but that eternal life is, have put themselves in a most ridiculous position. We know no more about the one than we know about the other, and we know nothing about either saving what the Lord Jesus Christ has told us. Probably the greatest book that ever was written, outside the Bible, on "Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death" was written during the last few years by a# great man, and he tries to prove, outside God's Book, simply by speculation, that the human soul is immortal, and he ends exactly where he begins, viz., with his intuition. All we know about "Hell," all we know about damnation and eternal life, the Bible alone has given to us, and if we go "off" and say "God is unjust" because He teaches perennial "death" (and say therefore He can never have taught it), we have put ourselves exactly under the condemnation that God gives in those passages in Deuteronomy and Revelation. The mortal aspect is that the soul, as merely the expression of spirit, disappears, as we know it, when th*j body dies. These things transcend reason, but they do not contradict the nature of reason; they are simply divine revelations of our Lord Jesus Christ, and He is the only being who is the final authority.

All we can have hoped to do in these studies of the human soul is to have suggested lines of research for the Bible student.