expressiveness of this sign consists in the significant way in which the Holy Scriptures attribute circumcision or the want of it (metaphorically) to the heart (Deut. x. 16; xxx. 6; Jer. iv. 4; ix. 26), to the lips (Ex. vi. 12, 30), and to the ears (Jer. vi. 10; compare Acts vii. 51). All this shows conclusively the fitness of circumcision to be a sign of the whole Abrahamic covenant of grace.

(b) Nevertheless it was only a sign of the covenant-it was not, strictly speaking, the covenant itself. A thing cannot be a sign of itself. If circumcision was appointed as a sign of the Abrahamic covenant, as we are told it was (verse 11), it could not itself be the covenant. It could indeed be called that; for nothing is more common than to call symbols of covenants by the name "covenant;" as for example the record of an agreement is called an "agreement." So the rainbow in the clouds was not the covenant made with Noah, but the sign of it. The heaps of stone piled up by Laban and Jacob were not the agreement between uncle and nephew, but " witnesses," that is signs of it. Had we the phrase "the covenant of the rainbow," that phrase would naturally mean, "the covenant about the earth and the seasons symbolised by the rainbow;" and in like manner the expression made use of by the "minister" Stephen, "the covenant of circumcision " (Acts vii. 8), naturally means "the covenant betokened by circumcision." There is nothing to show that the speaker intended the mere rite considered by itself. God gave Abraham the whole covenant of which circumcision was the symbol and the memorial. This is important, as showing the futility of the endeavour to make out two Abrahamic covenants partly by the force of the designation made use of by Stephen and preserved in the seventh of the Acts; as though the covenant with our patriarch "concerning Christ" (Gal. iii.) were one covenant, and "the covenant of circumcision were another. The covenant of which circumcision was the sign is the covenant which has the Messiah as its centre. To Him the wounded flesh and streaming blood point; for His grace and power the demanded purity calls; to prepare for and bring forth Him the signed people are separated and summoned.

(c) Circumcision, being only a sign, could be treated with just the amount of freedom which was in fact used respecting it. Females were not excluded from the Abrahamic covenant; they were excluded only from receiving the sign of it. The Hebrew male children were under the Abrahamic covenant as truly if not as formally before as after the eighth day. Servants-both home-born and money-bought-could receive the rite; for, though they could not be certified to be Abraham's flesh when they were not, yet they could take their part in memorialising the covenant made with their master. Nay more! believing servants, like Eliezer of Damascus for instance, could be reminded by the very rite itself that although they had not their master's flesh yet they had his faith, by virtue of which they might share at least in the blessing of all nations, to say nothing of the minor and temporary benefits falling to their lot as dwellers within Israel's gates. Again, the neglect of circumcision did not necessarily entail death. The law here given merely says that the soul or person of the uncircumcised was severed from his kinsfolk. The covenant indeed was "made void; " i.e., either simply the sign was made of no effect when neglected; or if the sign were wilfully

contemned, the covenant itself would be renounced; for certainly God has not promised to bless either the Abrahamic seed or all nations while guilty of wilful rebellion. Sacred history attests how sternly, upon occasion, circumcision could be insisted on (Ex. iv. 24-26); yet on the other hand how leniently the lapse of it might be treated under extenuating circumstances (Josh. v. 2-9). This diversity of dealing is explained by the simple consideration that circumcision, though attached to and expressive of the whole Abrahamic covenant, was in itself only a sign of that gracious compact.

ness.

(d) Circumcision was a seal as well as a sign. It was a "seal of the righteousness of the faith which he [Abraham] had yet being uncircumcised." Excellent! The righteousness which Abraham by faith attained is a sealed righteousness. Excellent, we say again. The seal was never broken. Abraham never renounced nor in any way lost his righteousThe land-the seed-the grace-the blessing are safe. Abraham never forfeited them. With this we are content. It is loosely supposed that circumcision was a seal to everyone who received it. Not in evidence! It is even positively said that circumcision was the seal of the land covenant. Again we say-not in evidence; and the distinction of a temporary "land covenant from an eternal "Christ covenant" is without foundation. It is better to keep to what is written.

JOSEPH B. ROTHERHAM.

THE INTERMEDIATE STATE.

Phil. i. 23.

ON of the tion, there is a great variety of opinion among

N the condition of the dead during the intermediate state, that is,

thoughtful, earnest men; all desirous to arrive at truth upon a question of which they feel the deep importance. Some think that man is truly and really dead throughout that whole state. Others, with many modifications of opinion, consider that he is throughout it truly and really alive.

There can be no doubt that this question is a most important one. No one at all acquainted with religious controversy can hold any other view. On every side it touches doctrines that have agitated the human mind. While, in our judgment, the view of our opponents affords scope and opportunity for a variety of doctrines generally condemned by the Churches of the Reformation; our view, if accepted, would at once and for ever render even the discussion of such questions impossible.

Our view is simply this. We suppose that when death takes place the believer truly and really ceases to exist, and continues thus until the voice of Christ calls him up from the grave. The spirit of life from God which had animated him animates him no more, but has gone back to its eternal source in God until the day of resurrection. That spirit was not the man himself, but that which gave life to the man. Without it the man is dead. He is not living in heaven, or in any place of living beings, whether you call it Paradise or hades. He is not living above this

earth or within it. He has ceased to think, to feel, to hope, to love. All his thoughts have perished. Death has been to him a real power, blotting him for the while from the land of the living. He is dead, and buried, and gone back to his dust. He has become what he was before the Creator made him a living soul.

Our opponents' view is essentially opposed to this. We cannot state it so simply as ours because there are considerable varieties of opinion among them. According as they suppose man to be dual, i.e., composed of soul and body, or as they consider man as tripartite, i.e., composed of body, soul and spirit, according to each of these opinions they must vary in their definitions of the intermediate state. And again, they must do so according to their view as to where man is located in the intermediate state, whether with Christ in the highest heavens, or in Paradise, or in hades; which latter condition is by such supposed a condition of life. For these reasons we cannot give so simple a definition of their view as we can of ours.

There is, however, one main point on which they are essentially agreed among themselves and essentially opposed to us. The true man, how. ever composed, whether improved or deteriorated by the change which they call death, whether in heaven or in some locality within this earth, the true and proper man, according to one and all of them, is not dead but is alive. His thoughts have not perished; they are only transferred with himself to some other scene. Death has not put an end, however temporary, to the believer's existence; it has only altered the place where it is spent. Man with them is not in the grave. His body is there, but the body is not the person, the man. The man, the true person, the being who here had thought, and felt, and hoped, and loved, is not dead. He is truly and really alive.

What, we ask, is their support for this view? When the Bible generally, as all allow, speaks of man as dead, why do they insist with one consent that he is not truly dead, but is truly alive? They must have some good resort for what appears, at first sight at least, to be a point blank contradiction of what is stated over and over again in God's Word.

Now we unhesitatingly affirm that in the whole of the Old Testament, from its beginning to its end, there is not one text which speaks of the dead as being alive. There are texts without number which speak the very opposite. There are many texts which point to resurrection as the period when they are to obtain life. We affirm that there is not throughout its whole extent, covering so long a space of time, composed by so many different writers, so much as one text which tells us that man in the state of death is, perfectly or imperfectly, alive. We are told that he has returned to his dust, that he knows nothing, that his thoughts have perished! This is the invariable language of the Old Testament. There are no other texts which even seem to speak a different language. We ask our oppononts to give us one such. They

cannot.

Now we unhesitatingly say that this teaching of the Old Testament ought to decide this question. The Scriptures of the Jewish Church are as truly God's Word as the Scriptures of the Christian Church. Of them it was that St. Paul has said that they are able to make the man of God

perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works" (2 Tim. iii. 17). If, as no doubt is true, there are some subjects on which the Old Testament is not so full or so clear as the New, yet surely death, the wages of sin, is not one of these. If on this subject it speaks in one plain invariable tone, we ought to accept its testimony as final. We ought to accept its teaching as explanatory of what we find in the New.

Even

But our opponents are not satisfied with this. They pass over the whole of the Old Testament as though there were no such book in existence. They ignore its numerous plain statements. If they refer to it they disparage it as obscure, imperfect, unsatisfactory. They make their appeal to the New Testament, and will admit of no other. here, we hesitate not to say, they have very little even apparent support. The New Testament certainly in its general teaching here agrees with the Old. Sleep is the condition which it affirms of the departed, just as much as the Old Testament does. Our Lord tells us that His friend Lazarus was asleep during death. St. Luke tells us that when Stephen died he fell asleep. St Paul affirms of all departed believers that they sleep in Jesus, awaiting the resurrection (John xi. 11; Acts vii. 6; 1 Thess. i. 14; 1 Cor. xv. 51; Matt. xxvii. 52). It is universally affirmed of them that in death they repose in the grave, not in heaven. There is no hint that the grave contains only what might be compared to a worn-out garment, a fallen tent, a ruined house; but it is affirmed plainly and without reserve, that the grave contains the person, the man himself. Of all the departed, our Lord teaches us that " they are in their graves." The angel tells the women on the morning of resurrection to behold the tomb as the place where they "laid Christ." St. Luke, in the Book of Acts, tells us that the dead body which devout men carried to burial, was Stephen himself (John v. 28; Mark xvi. 6; Acts viii. 2). St. Paul affirms that without resurrection "the dead in Christ would have perished" (1 Cor. xv. 18).

Now what does this general teaching of the New Testament teach us? One thing it shows us beyond any doubt, that it means to teach us the same doctrine of death as the Old Testament did. And another thing we may surely say, viz., that, when we affirm that in death man sleeps, and is in the grave, we say nothing but what the New Testament, in its general teaching, affirms. Have we not a full and perfect right to abide by the general teaching of the New Testament? Is not its general teaching our best guide to the interpretation of any few passages which may at first sight appear to teach an opposite view?

Man cannot, all will allow, be truly and really in two places, or in two opposite conditions in one and the same time. He cannot, for instance, be in heaven, in the presence of Christ, and also be in the grave at the same time. We must make a choice between these two. If the true and real person be in heaven, we cannot suppose that the true and real person is at the same time in the grave or hades, and vice versa. And, if this be the case, is it not the reasonable rule of interpretation that we take a hundred texts which describe man as, when dead, in his grave, to explain some three or four which, taken by themselves, might seem to locate him elsewhere. These latter texts are easily counted. They are Luke xviii. 22; xxiii. 43; 2 Cor. v. 6; Phil. i. 23. We challenge our opponents to produce a single additional one. Are these

four texts to contradict a testimony otherwise invariable, or to be the key to the true interpretation of hundreds of passages which, without these, would have borne an opposite meaning? In our opinion the opposite should be the rule. The invariable teaching of the Old Testament, corroborated by, at least, the general teaching of the New, should rule with an absolute power the interpretation of the half dozen texts which are so often brought up upon this important question.

Now, of all these texts, that of Phil. i. 23 is generally felt and acknowledged to be the strongest in its apparent opposition to our view. It has always appeared to us as being such. The apostle says that he is in a strait between two things. One of them was "to depart, and to be with Christ," which he felt to be much better, so far as his own personal wishes were concerned. The other was "to abide in the flesh," which he considered to be "more needful" for the well-being of the Philippian Church.

Now with respect to this text, I freely confess that I do not differ in any way from the interpretation usually put upon it even by the opponents of my view. I consider that by departing, the apostle means, not as some upon our side would have it signify the return of the Lord, but his own death. The other expression, "being with Christ," can, of course, have but one meaning. It must mean, as the like phrase means wherever else it occurs, being in person with our Lord where He has been and now is since He ascended up to heaven to His Father's right hand (John xiv. 3; xvii. 24; 1 Thess. iv. 17; Acts iii. 21). From this interpretation of the passage, our opponents argue that, during the state called death, believers must be, and are, in a conscious living state; because the apostle speaks as though there were no interval between departing, i.e., dying, and being with Christ. They take it as an indisputable thing, and for our part we freely agree with them, that "being with Christ" where He now is, is absolutely inconsistent with the idea that those who are with Him are dead. They must needs be alive. But in order to see what inference is to be drawn from the text, we must examine it closely, and look at it on every side.

Now in considering the force of this phrase," being with Christ," we must rigorously confine it to its meaning. We cannot allow our opponents to affix, at their pleasure and for the convenience of their theory, any other meaning than the words properly bear. "To depart and to be with Christ," for instance, cannot signify merely to die and to be alive. The being alive may be properly inferred from being with Christ, but it cannot be accepted as the full meaning of the phrase. Neither, again, can "being with Christ" signify being in hades, even though part of hades may be supposed by our opponents to be Paradise, or Abraham's bosom. This is a favourite refuge for those of them who, with a little clearness, see the ugly position in which they are placed by accepting the phrase "being with Christ" in its plain obvious meaning. Faber, in his work entitled "The Many Mansions," is an example of this, when he says: "thus, in some sense, to be in the Paradise of hades is to be with Christ, though the human soul of Christ quitted it in the day of His resurrection " (2nd Ed. 353). But we cannot allow Mr. Faber, or any one else, thus conveniently to alter the sense of words. Whatever we mean by hades, Christ has left it, and is not there now. Being with