01.05.07. The Souls Under the Altar

7. THE SOULS UNDER THE ALTAR.

It is a serious loss to many believers that they regard the book of the Revelation as beyond comprehension, and are afraid to accept its symbols and visions as a revelation. Hence, when appeal is made to it they decline to accept its testimony. But symbols, pictures, figures of speech, being used by the Spirit of truth with divine care, teach with accuracy, and indeed with superior vividness, those who have eyes to see and ears to hear. Hieroglyphs have plain mean­ing to those who can read them, and this had been just as much the fact during the period when men could not read them, or in the later period when scholars differed as to their meaning. Patient research brought explanation and reconciliation.

One of the most illuminating portions of Scripture upon our present interesting and necessary themes is in Revelation 6:9-11. John says: “And when the Lamb opened the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of them that had been slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: and they cried with a great voice, saying, How long, O sovereign ruler, the holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? And there was given to them, to each one, a white robe; and it was said unto them that they should rest yet for a little time, until their fellow‑bondmen also and their brethren, who should be killed even as they were, should have fulfilled their course.” At the time here in view the resurrection of the godly has not yet come, for the roll of the martyrs is not complete. These brethren therefore are still without their resurrection bodies. But to John, rapt in spirit into that super‑sensuous world (c. Revelation 1:10 : “I became in spirit,” that is, in an ecstatic state), those “souls” were visible. Therefore death does not end the existence of the soul. Moreover, they are conscious: they remember what befell them on earth at the hands of the godless; they know what the future will bring of vengeance; they ponder the situation, and they wonder at the seeming delay of their vindication by God; they appeal to their Lord; they are given answer, counsel, and encouragement; they receive the sign of their Master’s approval, the white robe, at once His recompense for that they did not defile their garments in this foul world, and His assurance that they shall be His personal and constant associates in His kingdom (Revelation 3:4-5). This last item ‑ the giving of the white robe­s - shows further that not all saints await a session of the judgment seat of Christ when at last He shall come from heaven; for His decision and approval are here made known to these in advance of His coming and of their resurrection. The vision contains also something more, and which is completely unseen by most readers. When Samuel came from Hades to speak to Saul (1 Samuel 28:12-14) he was seen by the medium. She saw him “coming up out of the earth,” a further plain Intimation that Sheol is within the earth. She described him, saying it was “an old man” who had appeared, and he was “covered with a robe.” The description was so accurate that Saul, who had long known Samuel on earth, recognized him by it and was satisfied that the real Samuel was present, though he had not himself seen the appearance; for it says that “he perceived (Heb., knew),” not that he saw that it was Samuel. Equally does his question to the witch “What seest thou?” tell that he had not himself seen the form. This makes evident (a) that the disembodied soul has form and garments, such as can be seen by one endowed with vision therefor, as were the medium then and John later; and (b) that the psychical form and clothing of that state correspond recognizably to the outer material form and clothing of the former earth life. This has bearing upon the –question of recognition after death, and upon other interesting points not now to be examined. The reality of this psychical form is often assumed or asserted in Scripture. Dives in Hades (Luke 16:1-31) has a body that can feel anguish from a “flame.” There is “water” that could cool his “tongue.” Lazarus has a “finger.” Both Dives and Abraham have eyes and ears and voices; they see and hear and speak. The reality of bliss in that state must be surrendered if the reality of torment there be denied. That those realities are subtle as compared with their grosser counterparts of this world, does not make them or the experi­ences less real, but rather the more acute.

Thus also it is as to the souls “under the altar.” John sees them, and sees that to each of them is given a “robe” that is both suitable and significant.

It was for a similar, yet even higher, experience that Paul longed; for, while the disembodied state would indeed be far better than his painful lot as a prisoner, yet in itself it is not the best. And so on another occasion, when he was in freedom and rejoicing in his wondrous and privileged service, he spoke differently (2 Corinthians 5:1-10). First he spoke of the present: “We that are in this tent‑dwelling [the body] do groan, being burdened”: then he mentioned the intermediate state after death: “not for that we would be unclothed” (without adequate covering), for this is not to be desired, it is as unpleasant and unseemly for the soul as for the body*; and then he spoke of the future: “we long to be clothed upon with our habitation which is from heaven; if so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked,” that is, at the coming of the Lord.

[* Compare the evident longing of the evil spirit to return into the body he had left. Without a material body he wandered restless, like a thirsty man seeking water in a desert (Matthew 12:43-45). Demons also begged to enter the bodies of even swine, when driven from the body of a man. This misery of disembodied beings is recognized by the heathen, who often, by reason of dread and unholy contact with the demon world, have more sense of these matters than the materialized modern westerner. Thus a Chinese driver explained the whirling dust spouts of the Gobi desert as being spirits: “What they want is a body, and for lack of a better one they pick up a shroud of sand” (Misses Cable and French, Something Happened, 191).] This “if so be” implies the possibility of not having part in the first resurrection, for (1 Corinthians 15:54) that is the hour when “what is mortal shall be swallowed up of life,” by the soul being clothed upon with its “building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens,” a “house” in contrast to this present body, the frail transitory tent. This is the meaning of his earlier prayer above noticed, that “the spirit and soul and body be preserved entire, un­blemished,” and so unblamable (amemptbs includes both) when the Lord shall come (1 Thessalonians 5:22). No “naked,” that is, unembodied, soul can be presented before the presence of God’s glory, because for that it must be without blemish (amomos), not to be blamed (Jude 1:24; Ephesians 1:4). Were a man, however perfect his form, and even were he of the royal family, to present himself naked on a court day before the king upon his throne he would be severely blamed. Not only comeliness of person, but clothing, and suitable clothing, is indispensable. Indeed, the officers of the court would prevent anything so utterly unseemly. Shall the King of kings receive less respect? He that hath ears to hear let him hear this, and lay to heart that not death, but resurrection or rapture fits for translation to the realms above and the court of the God of glory. It was thus with Christ himself. For entrance into the holy places the priest had not only to be one of the redeemed people of God; he had also to be unblemished as to his person (Leviticus 21:1-24), and he had further to be clothed in garments of glory and beauty (Exodus 28:1-43). Both were indispensable for access to the presence of God. Moreover, before the perfect form could be clothed in such garments it had to be washed with water (Leviticus 8:6; Leviticus 16:4), which is the work our Moses, Christ, wishes to effect in us in this earthly life by His word (Ephesians 5:25-27) and by discipline (Hebrews 12:10), in preparation for that coming day of our being clothed for access to and service in the true sanctuary above.

If it be asked whether the righteousness imputed to the believer upon first faith in Christ does not include all this that is evidently necessary, the answer is a distinct negative. One consideration settles this. That imputed righteousness is the “righteousness of God,” and this is of necessity indefectible, untarnishable. But, according to the regulations, the priest may possibly be defective in form or defiled in person and clothing: were it not so, what need of the regu­lations and purifying ceremonies? For the forgiveness of sins, and for life as a forgiven man in the camp, neither perfection of form, nor washing at the gate of the tabernacle, nor special clothing, were demanded; but for access to God and for priestly service all these were as indispensable as the atoning blood. Imputed righteousness settles completely and for ever the judicial standing of the believer as justified before the law of God; but practical righteousness must be added in order to secure many of the mighty privileges which become possible to the justified. Let him that hath ears hear this also, for loss and, shame must be his at last who has been content to remain deformed and imperfect in moral state, or is found to have neglected the washing, and so to be unfit to wear the noble clothing required for access to the throne of glory. Such neglect of present grace not only causes the loss of heart access to God, as the careless believer surely knows, but will assure the forfeiture of much that grace would have granted in the future.

Here lies the weight of the warning which our Lord announces from heaven as to be specially applicable when His coming draws near: “Behold, I come as a thief. [This, message is set in the midst of the gathering of the hosts of Antichrist for the battle of Har Magedon, and so indicates the period when the coming will be]. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked and they see his shame” (Revelation 16:15). Therefore “garments” may be lost. If the reference is to the imputed righteousness, then justifi­cation may be forfeited, and the once saved be afterwards lost. But let those who rightly reject this, inquire honestly what it does properly mean as to the eternally justified. And let them face what is involved in the loss of one’s garments. In the temple of old the guards were placed at nightfall at their posts. The captain of the temple, at any hour he chose, went round with a posse of men unannounced, and if a guard was caught asleep at his post, he was stripped of his clothes, which were burned, and he was left to go forth in his shame. The shame of his nakedness was the outward counterpart of the deeper shame that he had slept when on duty. Not in that dishonoured state dare he enter the house of God and sing or serve. And it would be long ere the disgrace of that night would fade from memory, his own or others. My soul, keep awake through this short night of duty while thy Lord is away! Thou knowest not in which watch of the night He will come, and it were dreadful to be left un­clothed with that house which is from heaven should He come suddenly and find thee sleeping! To return to seal 5. These, then, are “souls” not “spirits.” Man has spirit as part of his composite being, but he is not a spirit, as angels are. In the 397 places where the word “spirit” comes in the New Testament man is never called a spirit, because he himself is not one, but is a soul. Hence, by the way, the “in‑prison spirits” of 1 Peter 3:19 are not human beings, but those fallen angels whom Peter again mentions (2 Peter 2:4: comp. Genesis 6:1-4 and Jude 1:6). This is put beyond question by the fact that these are in the underworld, in prison, in Tartarus ‑ a region well known to the ancient world, and by this name that Peter uses, as the deepest and most dreadful part of Hades, a prison of fallen angels; whereas the spirit of man does not go to the under­world, but to “God who gave it.”

It is therefore the soul which is the person; and ‑ against the annihilationist ‑ the soul has not ceased to exist, or lost its sense of personality, because of being without spirit or body. Yet neither can man in this incomplete condition stand in the all‑holy presence of God in heaven. For entrance into the holy of holies the high priest himself must be arrayed in garments specially pure and glorious. It was only in His resurrection body of glory that the Man Christ Jesus entered into the holy place on high, and so only can the under‑priests, His followers, do so. To stand there the being must be complete in structure and perfect morally, which is the point of Paul’s prayer for fellow‑saints: “The God of peace himself sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved entire, blameless in the parousia [the presence, at His coming] of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thessalonians 5:23). This shows that the phrase “the spirits of just men made perfect” points to the resurrec­tion. It has just before been said of them, that “apart from us they [i.e., Old Testament saints are included, (see Exodus 28:4-39) in this chapter. – Ed.] could not be made perfect” (Hebrews 12:23; Hebrews 11:40). All the other glories to which in this passage we are said, to have come are future, to be realized actually at the coming of the Lord. See my “Firstborn Sons,” 84 ff. The use of spirit in this place (Hebrews 12:23) may seem at variance with the statement that man is not called a “spirit!” It is a rare instance, perhaps in the New Testament the only instance, of Cremer’s fourth sense in which the term is used. It “comes to denote an essence without any corporeal garb for its inner reality”; that is, in Hebrews 12:23, which he cites, the man, the soul, without its body, is described as spirit, meaning a spiritual substance destitute of a material covering. This does not cancel the regular distinction in Scripture between soul and spirit, but indicates only the immateriality of the soul, the ego, in itself. The student should by all means study Cremer’s treatment of pneuma and psuche (Lexicon of N.T. Greek), and note his conclusion that “psuche [soul] is the subject or ego of life."

Now these souls that John saw are “under the altar.” Not one of the first six seals, of which this is the fifth, pictures events in the presence of God in heaven; all deal with affairs of earth, or as seen from the earth. This altar, then, is not in heaven. There is an altar in heaven pictured in the book, but it is specified as being the “golden altar,” that is, the one for incense (comp. Exodus 30:3), and as being “before the throne” or “before God” (Revelation 8:3, Revelation 9:13). In this book “before the throne” always means the upper heavens. But this other altar is one of sacrifice, though not of atoning sacrifice. We Christians have an altar of atoning sacrifice (Hebrews 13:10): it is the cross of Jesus, the Lamb of God. But that is not in view here. The picture is really quite simple. The brazen altar of sacrifice in the tabernacle was square and hollow, with a grating upon which rested the wood and the victims. When the fire had done its work the remains of the sacrifice fell through the grating to beneath the altar, whence they could be removed on occasion. Now the place, the “altar,” where these martyrs of Christ sacrificed person and life in His cause is obviously this earth, and thus this vision simply declares what we have seen from other scriptures, that the place of the dead is under the earth: “He descended into the lower parts of the earth”; whence those still there will be removed at resurrection.

Since these pages were written I have learned that this was the explanation of the earliest known Latin commentator on the Apocalypse, Victorihus of Pettau (died 303). Mr. F. F. Bruce summarized this in The Evangelical Quarterly (Oct., 1938) as follows: “The altar (6:9) is the earth: the brazen altar of burnt‑offering and the golden altar of incense in the Tabernacle correspond to earth and heaven respectively. The souls under the altar, therefore, are in Hades, in that depart­ment of it which is ‘remote from pains and fires, the rest of the saints’. ” This confirms Bishop Pearson cited above as to the view held in the earliest Christian centuries. A great deal more concerning Hades can be learned from Scripture, but it would require separate treatment. Here we deal with the matter only as connected with the subject in hand.

It is true, as above indicated on Hebrews 12:23,that the words soul and spirit take, by much usage, shades of meaning derived from their primary sense. The student will discover these, and will not be confused thereby if only the primary, dominant sense of each has been first grasped firmly. And keeping that sense before him, we believe he will find it to illuminate many obscure scriptures and subjects to see that the soul is the person ‑ a living soul while on earth ‑ a dead soul while in the underworld ‑ and to be made alive in im­mortality at the resurrection, with a body of glory incor­ruptible, indestructible. The term “immortal soul” is incorrect and misleading when used of our present state or of the dead. To be immortal is to be incapable of dying. Man is not this as yet. Neither the innocent humanity of Adam, nor even the sinless humanity of Jesus was immortal, for both were capable of dying, and did in fact die. But the saved of men will become immortal in resurrection, as the man Christ Jesus did. The soul, the man, has now endless existence but not immortality, in the proper sense of the word, until resurrection; and then only the saved will be incapable of dying; the lost will exist for ever, but in a state termed “dead,” the “second death.”

We rightly describe death as a “dissolution,” for the partnership between man’s spirit and soul and body is dis­solved. Of our Lord in resurrection we read the glorious fact that “He liveth in the power of indissoluble life” and “death no more hath dominion over Him” (Hebrews 7:16; Romans 6:9-10). This life His people will share for ever and ever. But for them, as for Him, it can be reached only by resurrection or rapture, never by death. It will be no small profit from this discussion if it be seen that the opinion that the believer goes at death to glory diminishes the sense of need of resurrection or rapture, and consequently of the return of Christ when these will take place; and also if it thus cause some hearts to feel that these events are utterly indispensable, the proper, the blessed hope of the believer. As Peter exhorts, let us “set our hope perfectly [that is, undividedly] on the favour that is being brought unto us at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:13).