III. Boardman-Innate Immortality Negates Resurrection

GEORGE DANA BOARDMAN, D.D., LL.D. (1828-1903), gifted Baptist clergyman, and for thirty years pastor of the First Baptist church of Philadelphia, was the son of Baptist missionaries to Burma, his mother being the second wife of Adoniram Judson. After graduating from Brown University and Newton Theological Seminary, Boardman was ordained in 1855. Then, after an eight-year pastorate in Rochester, New York, he went to Philadelphia, where he ministered in one church for the remainder of his life. (Pictured on page 543.)CFF2 547.4

A man of sterling integrity, large-minded, greathearted, and beloved by all, he stood in the front rank of the Baptist ministry. Indeed, in many things he was far ahead of his day, blending “doctrine with doing” and “creed with character.” His purpose was “not to argue but inquire, not to destroy but to upbuild.” ^{2323) Kerr Boyce Tupper, George Dana Boardman, p. 11.} He was also a frequent lecturer in various colleges and religious congresses.CFF2 548.1

1. NATURAL IMMORTALITY NOT TAUGHT IN BIBLE

To Dr. Boardman the Bible was ever supreme. And his Philadelphia pastorate was unique in that he preached 931 expositorial sermons that traversed the whole of the Old and the New Testament. It was estimated that these would be the equivalent of sixty-four volumes of 350 pages each. And many were put into printed form. Such is an expositional procedure probably without a parallel in the annals of modern preaching. And it was out of such a background of Bible study that he espoused Conditionalism. In his Studies in the Creative Week, one of his best-known works, he expressly states:
“Not a single passage of Holy Writ, from Genesis to Revelation, teaches, so far as I am aware, the doctrine of Man’s natural immortality. On the other hand, Holy Writ emphatically declares that God only hath immortality (1 Timothy 6:16).” ^{2424) George D. Boar man, Studies in the Creative Week, pp. 215, 216.}CFF2 548.2

Here are a few other samples:
“Belief then in Jesus Christ is the pivotal condition of securing the gift of immortality.” ^{2525) Board man, Immortality, p. 11.}CFF2 548.3

“I fear that in our preaching we do not make enough of this pivotal doctrine of Christianity [the resurrection, this distinguishing revelation of the gospel, this divine announcement from the Lord of the worlds, to wit, that Jesus and Jesus only is the resurrection and the life.” ^{2626) Ibid., p. 14.}CFF2 548.4

There was likewise a statement in his Epiphanes that is revealing:
“In the first Adam life existed as in a receptacle; from the Second Adam [Christ] life flows as from a fountain. Having life in Himself inherently, and not as a gift, the Second Adam touches life in its very origin and spring, being Himself the Resurrection and the Life.” ^{2727) Boardman, Epiphanies of the Risen Lord, p. 266.}CFF2 549.1

2. MAN NOT NATURALLY OR INHERENTLY IMMORTAL

It should be explained that Dr. Boardman’s Studies in the Creative Week were originally delivered as Sunday night sermons. Then, upon request, they were given a second time as fourteen noon lectures in a Philadelphia hall in 1878, and finally put into book form. So they had three public presentations-two oral and one printed. These sermons deal with Creation, Eden, the tree of life, the Fall, and the plan of redemption. One of Boardman’s key statements is that the “Tree of Life” was called such “because it was the symbol of bestowed immortality.” ^{2828) Boardman, Creative Week, p. 215.} And there is this further explicit statement: “man is not naturally, inherently, constitutionally, in the original make-up of his being, immortal.” ^{2929) Ibid.}CFF2 549.2

He then adds that he is speaking of “the doctrine of immortality as indicated in the [Genesis] Archive of Eden.” Here is his full, lucid statement concerning the Biblical witness as to man’s nature, from which an excerpt is quoted:
“I must add that not a single passage of Holy Writ, from Genesis to Revelation, teaches, so far as I am aware, the doctrine of Man’s natural immortality. On the other hand, Holy Writ emphatically declares that God only hath immortality (1 Timothy 6:16): that is to say: God alone is naturally, inherently, in His own essence and nature, immortal. He alone is the I AM-having this as His name forever, His memorial to all generations (Exodus 3:13-15). If, then, Man is immortal, it is because immortality has been bestowed on him. He is immortal, not because he was created so, but because he has become so, deriving his deathlessness from Him Who alone hath immortality.” ^{3030) Ibid., pp. 215, 216.}CFF2 549.3

3. IMMORTALITY TIED IN WITH TREE OF LIFE

Dr. Boardman concludes with this related question and statement:
“If Man is inherently immortal, what need was there of any Tree of Life at all? This much, then, seems to be clear: Immortality was somehow parabolically conditioned on the eating of this mysterious Tree, and the Immortality was for the entire Man-spirit and soul and body.” ^{3131) Ibid.: p. 216.}CFF2 550.1

4. PAGAN DUALISM RETAINED IN CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY

Boardman deplores the fact that Zoroastrian Dualism was injected into Christianity, and remarks, “It is amazing that a notion so thoroughly heathen was not long ago uprooted out of Christian theology.” Then, turning to another angle, he adds, “It seems impossible” that “the spirit should consciously exist without a body.” ^{3232) Ibid. p. 286.} That was the witness of his Creative Week. “Heaven is a place as well as a state, a locality as well as a character.... Thus in a sense, the two worlds-the present and the future-are related to each other as means to ends.” ^{3333) Ibid., p. 287.}CFF2 550.2

5. ANALOGIES FROM NATURE ARE DECEPTIVE

Next, in a remarkable sermon on “Immortality,” preached by Dr. Boardman before the North Philadelphia Baptist Association, an assembly of ministers, on October 1, 1891, and “published by order of the Association,” he answers the transcendent question, “If a man die, shall he live again” Dr. Boardman says that we cannot get any true answer from nature, metaphysics, reason, instinct, philosophy, or even the analogies of nature. As to the latter, he states convincingly:
“Very beautiful are the poetic interpretations of the re-emergence of the spring-leaves; the transformation of the caterpillar into the butterfly; the classic legends of the Phoenix and the Psyche. Alas, the analogy fails just at the point where it ought to win. Neither the tree nor the caterpillar actually died. But uproot the tree, so that the stump is actually dead; crush the caterpillar, so that its life is absolutely extinguished: think you that the tree will ever put forth spring-leaves, or that the caterpillar will ever flutter in the golden sunlight?” ^{3434) Boardman, Immortality, p. 6.}CFF2 550.3

6. INNATE IMMORTALITY A DENIAL OF LIFE AS CHRIST’S GIFT

To Jesus, then, we must go, and the New Testament. In His talks with Mary and Martha, Jesus declares that He Himself “in His own person and character and work, is the resurrection-force itself.” ^{3535) Ibid., p. 8.} And this resurrection of the sleeping saints will take place when He comes back again. Then Boardman adds:
“Jesus Christ is the source and means of the life as well as of the resurrection.... He is the resurrection because He is the life.” ^{3636) Ibid., p. 9.}CFF2 550.4

“Jesus Christ then is the source, the means, the giver of eternal life; the life which is spiritual, blessed, immortal.” ^{3737) Ibid., p. 11.}CFF2 551.1

But this sweeps aside the postulate of innate “personal immortality.” Then comes this striking statement:
“There is on the part of the church itself such a belief in the doctrine of the natural immortality of all men as to amount to a virtual denial of the doctrine that immortality or eternal life is the gift of Christ alone.” ^{3838) Ibid., p. 13.}CFF2 551.2

7. THE TOUCHSTONE OF CHRISTIANITY ITSELF

In answering the question “Do you believe that the Son of man is the sole giver of eternal life, and that he gives eternal life to none but his followers?” Boardman says:
“It is a fundamental question, lying at the very basis of Christian theology. It is the very touch-stone of Christianity. It is the gospel itself; Christ’s own evangel; his good news from above; his glad tidings from the far off country. Eternal life in Jesus Christ, blissful immortality in and through the Son of man-this is Christ’s own positive contribution to the literature of immortality, to the philosophy of the hereafter.” ^{3939) Ibid.}CFF2 551.3

8. GIVE INSPIRED INFORMATION ABOUT THE HEREAFTER

After declaring that it was Christ who “abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel”—to preach which is our responsibility as heralds and teachers—he makes this solemn appeal to his “brethren of the ministry“:
“When we come into our pulpits, it is not to soothe our listeners with brilliant conjectures, hopeful surmises, elaborate attempts at demonstration concerning immortality—that kind of preaching we leave to heathen teachers and pagan philosophers in Christian lands. But when we come into our pulpits, it is to give to our listeners positive, divine information about the hereafter.” ^{4040) Ibid., p. 14.}CFF2 551.4

9. OBLIGATION OF THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY

And he clinches his address with these words:
“It is our blessed privilege to say to the dying sinner: ‘The wages of sin is death; but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.’ It is our blessed privilege to announce to all men saints and sinners; ‘Our testimony is this, that God gave unto us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.’ Dearly beloved, pardon me for the utterance, but I must say it: I fear that in our preaching we do not make enough of this pivotal doctrine of Christianity, this distinguishing revelation of the gospel, this divine announcement from the Lord of the worlds, to wit, that Jesus and Jesus only is the resurrection and the life. It is precisely here that the Christian Religion comes out in most striking contrast with heathen philosophies.” ^{4141) Ibid.}CFF2 552.1

We are to fall back upon the Word of God when “stormtossed by... materialistic doubts, philosophical speculations, satanic assaults.” ^{4242) Ibid., p. 15.}CFF2 552.2

10. SUMMARIZING EXCERPTS ON CONDITIONALISM

Boardman then sums up his Conditionalist position with these terse phrases:
“Out of Christ death; in Christ life.”
“He who touches Christ’s cross, and none but he, lives for ever.”
“The way to the true Tree of Life is now open.”
“He [Christ] is the true Elixir Vitae; He alone is the heavenly nectar and ambrosia of the true immortality.” ^{4343) Ibid., p. 16.}CFF2 552.3