Part 40 (2/2)
Some have said that this Bible doctrine of the sleep of the dead until the resurrection is a gloomy one. Popular tradition thinks of the blessed dead as going at once to heaven, which, say some, is a beautiful thought. But they forget that the same teaching consigns their unbelieving friends to immediate torment--and that, too, while awaiting the judgment of the last day.
No; the Bible teaching is the cheering doctrine, the ”blessed hope.” All the faithful of all the ages are going into the kingdom together. This blessed truth appeals to the spirit that loves to wait and share joys and good things with loved ones. Of the faithful of past ages the apostle says:
”These all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: G.o.d having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.” Heb. 11:39, 40.
They are waiting, that all together the saved may enter in. And the time of waiting is but an instant to those who ”sleep in Jesus.”
David was a man of G.o.d, but the apostle Peter, speaking by the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, declared to the people of the city of David: ”He is both dead and buried, and his sepulcher is with us unto this day....
For David is not ascended into the heavens.” Acts 2:29-34. They without us have not been made perfect. They are all awaiting that glad day toward which the apostle Paul turned the last look of his mortal vision:
”I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.” 2 Tim. 4:7, 8.
What joy in that day to march in through the gates into the eternal city, with Adam, and Abel, and Noah, and Abraham, and Paul, and all the faithful, and the loved ones of our own home circles, and dear comrades in service, every one clothed with immortality, the gift of G.o.d in Christ Jesus our Redeemer! Horatius Bonar's hymn sings the joyful hope as the loved are laid away to ”sleep in Jesus:”
”Softly within that peaceful resting place We lay their wearied limbs, and bid the clay Press lightly on them till the night be past, And the far east give note of coming day.
”The shout is heard, the Archangel's voice goes forth; The trumpet sounds, the dead awake and sing; The living put on glory; one glad band, They hasten up to meet their coming King.”
In a word, the Scripture teaches that G.o.d alone has immortality, that man is mortal, that death is a sleep, that life after death comes only by the resurrection of the last day, that the righteous are then given immortality. Further, the Scripture teaches that later there will be a resurrection of the unjust, not unto life, but unto death, the second death, from which there is no release.
Every doctrine of Scripture and of the gospel is in accord with this Bible teaching as to man's nature and his state in death. But the traditional view of the natural immortality of the soul and of life in death, nullifies the Bible doctrines of life only in Christ, and the resurrection, and the judgment, and the giving of rewards at Christ's coming, and the final judgment upon the wicked and its execution.
A Few Questions Briefly Considered
_1. The ”Living Soul”_
Says one, ”Did not the Lord put into man an immortal soul?”
No; the Scripture says:
”The Lord G.o.d formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” Gen.
2:7.
The soul was not put into the man, but when the life-giving breath was breathed into his nostrils, the man himself became a living soul, a living being. The ordinary version (King James) gives ”a living soul” in the margin of Gen. 1:30, showing that the same expression is used of all the animal creation in the Hebrew text. The famous Methodist commentator, Dr. Adam Clarke, says on this phrase, ”living soul:”
”A general term to express all creatures endued with animal life, in any of its infinitely varied gradations.”
_2. Are ”Soul” and ”Spirit” Deathless?_
”Are not the soul and spirit said to be deathless?” questions another.
No. One writer says of the Scriptural use of the words ”soul” and ”spirit:”
”The Hebrew and Greek words from which they are translated, occur in the Bible, as we have seen, seventeen hundred times.
Surely, once at least in that long list we shall be told that the soul is immortal, if this is its high prerogative.
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