The term gulf, in the original, is χάσμα, chasma, from which we derive the English word chasm, which denotes an interstice, that is a space between two things; consequently, in the case before us, it must mean that world which exists between heaven and hell. This idea was held by the most eminent Fathers of the Church:[1] indeed, it is founded in the very nature of things; for between opposites there must be intermediates; and, therefore, between heaven and hell there must be an intermediate region. The force of this reasoning has been perceived; and, therefore, it has been thought, and sometimes expressed by Protestant writers, that the intermediate state of the soul between death and judgment was a condition of insensibility.[2] But what is this but the cessation of a life that never dies? for surely that must be a strange conception of immortality which can imagine the interruption of conscious life for thousands of years, and which, if this doctrine were true, is still the condition of the first men, supposing them not yet to have experienced their judgment. But this is an idea nowhere taught in the Scriptures. The Lord said, that those who live and believe in Him should never die:[3] and also, that the faithless had a worm that dieth not.[4] To suppose that the promise of "everlasting life" includes the idea of unnumbered years of insensible existence, is a novelty of interpretation on which we need not dwell. Dives and Lazarus, though dead as to their natural bodies, were still living, thinking, talking men. To be absent
- ↑ See Dr. Pearson on the Creed, under the clause, "He descended into hell." Also Dr. Burnet, in his Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles. Art, iii.
- ↑ Dr. Whately's View of Scripture Revelation concerning a Future State. Fifth edition, p. 89.
- ↑ John xi. 26.
- ↑ Mark ix. 44—48.
