Only God is immortal; man depends on works
Loughborough asserts that only God possesses inherent immortality and that men will obtain it only in the resurrection through good works, denying conscious and eternal punishment.
Por Rodrigo Custódio ·
The setting
On Thursday, June 30, 1881, the Signs of the Times of Oakland, California, carried in volume 7, number 25, page 290, the seventh chapter of the series "Is sin eternal?", by J. N. Loughborough, presented as being from Southampton, England. The theme this time: immortality — who has it, who will have it, and on what conditions.
The article begins on true ground: "only God has immortality" (1 Tim 6:16), and the gospel "brought life and immortality to light" (2 Tim 1:10). Up to that point, the apostle Paul would have signed his name to it. The deviation enters in the next sentence, when the author turns the gift into wages: immortality would be obtained "in the resurrection" by those who are "patient and persevering in doing good."
Note the mechanics of the thesis: immortality ceases to be a free clothing — "this mortal must put on immortality" (1 Cor 15:53) — and becomes the remuneration of moral perseverance. Man does not receive eternity; he conquers it, installment by installment of good works, until the day of the resurrection. It is the old balance scale: on one side, the piled-up works; on the other, the crown.
And there is the corollary, which is the true target of the entire series: if immortality is conditional and future, the wicked will never have it — therefore there exists for them no conscious eternal existence, nor eternal punishment. The doctrine closes the circle of annihilationism: the wicked do not suffer forever because they will not even exist forever.
Period storehouse: the merchant pours out a sack of good works before the balance scale, beneath the luminous crown — editorial illustration.
The absurdity
Immortality becomes merchandise: God has it by nature, and man obtains it only in the resurrection — if he pays the price in perseverance in doing good. The free gift is rewritten as a moral paycheck. Read the exact words of the printed page, in translation:
"These Scriptures, then, affirm that only God has immortality, and in the gospel it is brought to light that those who are patient and persevering in doing good will obtain immortality in the resurrection."
Source: Signs of the Times, vol. 7, no. 25, June 30, 1881 — p. 290.
Highlighted clipping of the printed page with the quoted passage, edition of June 30, 1881, p. 290.
Why this is serious
The thesis turns a gift into wages — and Paul wrote exactly the opposite: "the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom 6:23). Gift, not payment; grace, not recompense. "By grace you have been saved through faith... it is not of works, so that no one may boast" (Eph 2:8-9). To condition immortality on perseverance in doing good is to reintroduce through the back door what the front door of the gospel expelled: salvation by works.
The article misrepresents the very text it quotes. In 1 Corinthians 15, the "putting on" of immortality is an act of God upon the believer, not an achievement of the believer: "in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye... the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed" (1 Cor 15:52). The resurrection is the work of God's power, not the paycheck of human perseverance. No one clothes himself.
And the favorite verse of the system — "to those who by perseverance in doing good seek glory, honor, and incorruption" (Rom 2:7) — describes the fruit of faith, not the root of salvation. Perseverance in doing good is evidence of one who has already been reached by grace, not the coin with which immortality is bought. To confuse evidence with cause, fruit with root, is the classic error of all legalism — and it always ends by weighing man on the balance scale instead of prostrating him before the cross.
The annihilationist corollary falls along with the premise. To deny conscious eternal punishment because "only God has immortality" ignores that the continued existence of the condemned does not depend on inherent immortality: it depends on the judgment of God, who raises them to "everlasting contempt" (Dan 12:2) and keeps them in conscious torment "day and night forever and ever" (Rev 20:10). God sustains the existence of whom He wills, for as long as He wills — including forever, in judgment.
A giant balance scale with good works piled on one pan and the crown of immortality in the sky — editorial illustration.
The verdict of the Scriptures
Paul contrasts the two economies in a single sentence: "the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom 6:23). Wages on one side, gift on the other — and immortality is on the side of the gift. Whoever turns it into wages reverses the apostle's sentence and preaches another gospel.
John shows that eternal life is a present possession, not a future prize of perseverance: "God gave us eternal life; and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has the life" (1 John 5:11-12). Has — present. "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life" (John 3:36). The believer does not wait for the resurrection to begin to have eternal life; he already has it, because he already has the Son.
And the basis of that possession excludes works by definition: God "saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and the grace which was given us in Christ Jesus" (2 Tim 1:9). The foundation is God's purpose, not man's perseverance; the grace given, not the good accumulated. No balance scale weighs what God gives freely.
Finally, the parallelism that conditional immortality tries to erase: "And these will go away into eternal torment, but the righteous into eternal life" (Matt 25:46). It is the same word — eternal — for the torment and for the life, in the same sentence, from the same lips of Christ. To shorten hell with the scissors of "conditional immortality" is to shorten heaven with the same scissors. The Bible does not authorize the cut — on either side.