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The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2

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    V. Hart-Goes to Very Heart of Provision of Immortality

    Well-trained laymen likewise made their contributions. One such was WILLIAM R. HART (fl. 1882), businessman of Philadelphia, who was also a Bible student of no mean attainments and a writer, one of his books being titled Eternal Purpose. To catch the caliber of his contributions, we will find it profitable to survey the high lights of his chapter eight in the same Symposium, The Life Everlasting. It deals with the basic principles of salvation and immortality. Deploring the negative character and speculative popular emphasis on the “destiny of the lost,” he presses on the reverse side-the “positive” and “reciprocal” relations between Christ and the saints, based upon their reception of His life. Then he observes:
    “The non-immortality of those who do not possess this life is a corollary, and necessary result of the doctrine, but is by no means the substance of the doctrine itself.” 2424) William R. Hart, “The Unity of the Faith,” in Pettingell, The Life Everlasting, p. 655.
    CFF2 524.4

    1. IMMORTALITY CENTERS IN PERSON OF CHRIST

    Contending that the Bible is “not a compendium of abstract doctrine,” but is rather the revelation of a “Person” in whom all truth centers, he states:
    “The truth concerning the Lord Jesus Christ is, therefore, the beginning of the Scripture doctrine of Immortality. All truth centres in Him. He is the Truth; that is to say, He is the personal, living embodiment of all that God has to say to His creatures. In Him all truth is harmonized, and each separate statement forms part of a resplendent and harmonious whole. It is just here that Christianity has missed the key to Revelation. Revelation is about Him, and all its disclosures centre in Him.” 2525) Ibid., p. 656.
    CFF2 525.1

    2. THEOLOGIANS START FROM WRONG ASSUMPTION REGARDING IMMORTALITY

    Theologians, Hart says, have regrettably taken “isolated statements,” and have “built up clashing and inconsistent theories.” But “their starting-point has been wrong; hence their exegesis and dogmatic induction have led to wrong results.” 2626) Ibid. That is why the various commentators are in conflict. Then he pinpoints his generalities:
    “The most fruitful source of error in this respect has been the assumption that the Bible history of man assumes his native and inherent immortality....
    CFF2 525.2

    “The Unity of the Faith which centres in Him as the Life, as well as the Way and Truth, is shattered when immortality is claimed to be, instead of His possession and His gift, the inherent and inalienable possession of the creature.” 2727) Ibid.CFF2 525.3

    Such a misconception, Hart adds, changes the whole “divine economy” as regards atonement, God’s sovereignty, faith, regeneration, and hope. All are radically affected. The “popular doctrine of the Immortality of the Soul” is the “foundation” of a “heterogeneous religion,” whereas the “doctrine of Immortality derived from Christ only is the central fact in a homogeneous Christianity.” In the former, the roots are cut as to our “common immortality,” achieved through vital union between “Christ and His saints,” as revealed in the New Testament. 2828) Ibid., pp. 656, 657.CFF2 525.4

    3. DEITY, INCARNATION, AND RESURRECTION ARE BASIC

    Hart then sets forth three vital principles, or provisions, that undergird the entire question. We quote his introductory statement:
    (1) “The central fact in this Unity of the Faith is the essential Deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. Apart from this it is impossible to rightly understand the Scripture teaching concerning Immortality [God’s redemptive work in manifesting Himself to His creatures].... This manifestation is made in a Person, through whom Immortality is conferred on the worthless and perishing. Now if this Person were less than God, He could not be the expression of God.... God only can be the absolute and complete expression of Himself.” 2929) Ibid., p. 657.
    CFF2 526.1

    He is all the “fulness of the Godhead.”CFF2 526.2

    (2) “The next essential element in this Unity is that God became Man,” humbling Himself, not only by taking the form of a man but by becoming obedient to death, even the “death of the cross.” 3030) Ibid.CFF2 526.3

    (3) “The third essential is Resurrection.” Christ Jesus, the “Second Man,” successfully met every test “imposed upon Him.” He “lived, suffered, and died.” He went down into death. “One sin would have kept Him there, but His perfect victory was demonstrated by His resurrection from the dead.” 3131) Ibid., pp. 657, 658. This exaltation demonstrated His “Essential Immortality.” And in “fulfillment of the Divine Purpose” the “gift of Immortality—the resurrection life of the Man Jesus Christ—is imparted to other men.” “They are one body, because they have a common life.” And “this life is deathless” and “incorruptible”—“words never applied to men out of Christ.” 3232) Ibid., p. 658.CFF2 526.4

    4. PAUL’S EMPHASIS ON GRACE, ATONEMENT, LIFE

    And running all through the Pauline Epistles is a “triple cord of truth, viz., Grace, Atonement, Life.” “Grace is the sovereign, unpurchaseable, unchangeable love of God which saves, immortalizes, and exalts helpless and worthless sinners.” 3333) Ibid., p. 658,659. It is “defined in the words, The gift of God is eternal life.” A gift must by its very nature be gratis-bestowed through the Son upon those whose names are “catalogued in the ‘Lamb’s Book of Life.’” 3434) Ibid., p. 659.CFF2 526.5

    “From this very sovereignty springs the freedom of grace” —the gift of “eternal life.” What God gives He gives freely, absolutely. Its “conscious reception” is brought about simply by believing God’s “message about the free gift.” And the “consciousness of reception is not until after the gift has been bestowed and received. The believing is the first function of the new life.” 3535) Ibid.CFF2 527.1

    “But before the object of Grace can become its subject,before immortality can be bestowed,—sin must have been taken out of the way.” This was effected by the atoning work of the cross. “The Son of God hung there, under the frown of Infinite Justice.” There “infinite Wisdom and Mercy” met. 3636) Ibid. “The penalty of sin descended upon His head.” And “the believer is not only reckoned of God as having died with Christ, but he is also risen with Him. As thus risen, and only because he has thus risen, he possesses Eternal Life.” “Its source is the Second Adam, the immortalized Man,” who hath “‘life in Himself.’” 3737) Ibid., p. 660.CFF2 527.2

    5. THE ULTIMATE DESTRUCTION OF ALL EVIL

    “Finally,” Hart adds, “the doctrine [Life Only in Christ] teaches the ultimate destruction of all Evil. Nothing is Eternal but Good.” The reconstituted universe will be headed up in Christ. The last enemy will be “destroyed.” In the new heavens and the new earth there will be no more sorrow, pain, or death. “The saints will be with and like Christ” to all eternity. 3838) Ibid., p. 662.CFF2 527.3

    6. WEIGH THE TWO SYSTEMS-CHOOSE THE TRUE

    Contrast all this, Hart appeals in his conclusion, with the theory that man is innately “immortal,” that “Evil is eternal,” and that “the death of Christ is but the partial remedy, for the great misfortune that befell the Universe when Evil began to be”—and that, “notwithstanding this mighty sacrifice, countless millions must suffer in hell forever.” 3939) Ibid., p. 663. Which of the two positions, he asks, is in harmony with the witness of Scripture? He believes there is but one answer—let God be true.CFF2 527.4

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