Page:The Annihilation Theory Compared with Holy Scripture.pdf/10

10 of the beast, that which dies knows nothing, and has no more a reward, that which goeth into the grave cometh up no more. But there is a sense in which man has an undoubted pre-eminence above a beast, a broad line of distinction between the two hinted at in Eccl. iii. 21, “Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?” In the 8th Psalm we have a very explicit statement upon this head, “What is man, that Thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that Thou visitest him? For Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of Thy hands; Thou hast put all things under his feet.”

If man’s pre-eminence above the beast is not in the body and bodily life, then it must be in the spirit and spiritual life. Our bodily or natural life is like that of the beasts, and ends at death, but while the Bible nowhere speaks of a future for the brute creation, it speaks very plainly of a future for man; it tells us that men are responsible beings, that they are a little lower than the angels, and that “the wicked go away into everlasting punishment, and the righteous into life eternal.”

(Before leaving Objections II. and III. we would draw attention to the inconsistency of those who tell us that the doctrine of immortality was first taught by the Lord Jesus, and yet found their own denial of immortality upon the teachings of those who lived prior to the Lord’s Advent.)