One Life Only: An Argument Against God's Character

If human life redeemed by Christ is limited to this world alone, Elohim has committed a cruel mistake in creating man. The greatness of man becomes a terrible charge against the Almighty. He has created appetites which He cannot satisfy, excited hopes which must perish, built a great ship and must destroy it because He cannot create a sea in which it can float. What would be thought of a man who built a splendid chariot and could not get it out of the workshop?

A man believes in Christ and becomes identified with all that is known of purity, joy, and hope. He rejects the promises of the world; he gets all that the world can give and finds that it is a stone, not bread. His whole life becomes a hunger after something higher. Having thus developed, he is told that his grave is dug, and that into it must be thrown every dream, hope, desire.

This world is enough for creatures destitute of aspiration—for the lion and the eagle. They cannot hope, pray, aspire. But one life only is an argument against Elohim's goodness: the psalmists sang as if they had laid hold of eternal life, declaring Jehovah to be all their salvation and all their desire. To this, if death ends all, Yahweh's answer is extinction.

One life only argues against His wisdom: Could man not have been made to be satisfied with the present world? One life only argues against His power: impair one of Elohim's attributes and you overturn the whole Godhead.