No Probation After Death

A friend asks the SIGNS to give an exposition of 1 Pet. 3:18, 19; 4:6. He says that he has met a man who bases his believe in the immortality of the soul, on these two texts, the argument being that the dead spoken of are those that died previous to the promise to Abraham; that before Abraham’s time there was no promise of the redeemer, and that to those who lived before that time, Christ went and announced the good news of salvation. The brother is not troubled on his own account, but wishes to know how to present the case to another.

In the first place, a man’s opinion is no consequence whatever, unless he can offer some evidence in its support. When the objector says that there was no promise of the Messiah, until the time of Abraham, he must show proof, or else his theory is not worthy of consideration. That the Messiah was promised before our first parents were driven from the Garden of Eden is susceptible of the clearest proof. Thus: —

1. It was the devil himself who tempted Eve. With Gen. 3:13 and 2 Corinthians 11:3, compare Rev. 12:9, which says that the serpent is the devil and Satan, and that it is he that deceives the whole world. There can be no controversy over the statement that it was the devil under the guise of a serpent, who caused our first parents to fall.

2. In the garden God said to the serpent, the devil, “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” (Gen. 3:15). Here is the statement that the seed of the woman should destroy Satan; and when we read (Heb. 2:9, 14) that Jesus died in order that “he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil,” we know that Jesus Christ is the “seed” mentioned in Gen. 3:15. So then, not withstanding what may be said to the contrary, we know that the Messiah was promised before the days of Abraham. More evidence could be given if it were needed.

But, it being true that the promised Messiah was known from the time of the fall, the supposition that Christ, between his crucifixion and his resurrection, went to preach the gospel to those who lived before the time of Abraham, or before the flood, amounts to nothing. There is absolutely no ground for the position that the people before Abraham were not on probation; therefore the only loophole for those who will have it that Christ, after his crucifixion, went and preached to some dead persons, is the more common position that certain ones, especially of the antediluvians, “did not have a fair chance,” and that justice required that after death they should have the chance of which they were deprived during their life-time. This is the position taken by Canon Farrar, and by all who, with him, adopt the theory of a probation after death. But this view is unscriptural and wicked, as we shall show.

It is wicked, because it presents God as a tyrant, changeable, and careless of the welfare of his subjects, instead of the God of infinite mercy, love and justice, and with whom is “no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” Take notice. If it were true that immediately after his crucifixion Christ went and preached to some who had lived before the flood, there could be no