April 2  And What About Death?-3

And the serpent said unto the woman, ye shall not surely die. Gen. 3:4.

Two streams brought the biblical truth of death and hell into Sabbatarian Adventism. George Storrs, whom we met earlier as a leading proponent of the seventh-month movement, stimulated one. Back in 1837 Storrs had come across a book by Henry Grew that dealt with the final destiny of the wicked. Grew argued for the "entire extinction of being and not endless preservation in sin and suffering."

Up to that time Storrs had never doubted that people possessed immortal souls. But Grew's work drove him to a thorough study of the Bible on the topic. As a result, Storrs "became settled that man has no immortality by his creation, or birth; and that 'all the wicked will God destroy'-utterly exterminate." He had come to believe in what theologians refer to as conditionalism (i.e., people receive immortality only through the condition of faith in Christ) and annihilationism (the final eternal destruction of the wicked rather than their preservation alive in the fires of hell throughout ceaseless ages).

The teaching of those doctrines brought Storrs into conflict with the Methodist establishment and contributed to his resignation as a minister in 1840. Storrs set forth his views in such books as An Inquity: Are the Souls of the Wicked Immortal? In Six Sermons (1842). He argued that the devil's proclamation to Eve in the Garden of Eden, "Ye shall not surely die," was the biggest lie ever.

By 1842 Storrs had become a Millerite through the ministry of Charles Fitch. Unfortunately, all the Millerite leaders except Fitch vigorously reacted to Storrs' views. On January 25, 1844, Fitch wrote him of his convictions: "As you have long been fighting the Lord's battles alone, on the subject of the state of the dead, and of the final doom of the wicked, I write this to say that I am at last, after much thought and prayer, and a full conviction of duty to God, prepared to take my stand by your side. I am thoroughly converted to the Bible truth, that 'the dead know not anything.'"

Not wanting to hide his "light under a bushel," Fitch soon preached two sermons on the topic to his congregation in late January. "They have produced a great uproar," he penned to Storrs. "Many thought I had a devil before, but now they feel sure of it. But I have no more right my Brother, to be ashamed of God's truth on this subject than on any other."

Fitch, as we noted earlier, was a man willing to stand by his convictions once he was certain of the Bible's teaching. May we emulate his sprit.

The Holy Spirit, the representative of Himself, is the greatest of all gifts. All "good things" are comprised in this. The Creator Himself can give us nothing greater, nothing better(TFMB 132).