Death and the Eternal State
What is your opinion concerning that tract, ‘‘God’s Love and Consuming Power”’?
It is a dangerous presentation of the dangerous doctrine of conditional immortality, sometimes called “annihilationism.” The sufficient answer to the contention that the lake of fire produced death in the sense of annihilation is found in Revelation 19:20 with Revelation 20:10. The beast and false prophet are cast alive into the lake of fire, and after one thousand years they are still there. And, not only so, their doom is declared to be, not extinction of being, but “torment day and night forever and ever.’’ Our space does not permit a demonstration (which could be easily made) that the biblical words death, second death, perish, destroy, never, in Old Testament or New, mean extinction of being.
Why is it that so little is said m Scripture concerning the future?
It is surprising how much we know about the eternal state and equally surprising how little we know. We know enough to give perfect certainty of blessedness to the saved, and of unspeakable woe to the lost; but not enough to permit much detail. Possibly we could not at present comprehend the eternal conditions. It is clear that there are to be “a new heaven and a new earth” in the place of the “‘first heaven and the first earth” (Rev. 21:1). This cannot be the millennial state for reasons which cannot be here stated, though doubtless there is a millennial aspect to Revelation 21:9-27. It is equally clear that the Church, “the new Jerusalem,” descends “out of heaven’’ to, or over the earth, and that “the tabernacle of God is with men, and he shall dwell with them and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them” (Rev. 21:2, 3, R. V.).
Can you give me any light on the subject of our
holy dead?
The last clear word we have on the subject of the holy dead is in 2 Corinthians 5. Biblical revelation is progressive. We do not gain a clear view of a truth by jumbling together all the passages bearing upon it, but by marking carefully as we go through the Bible the progress or unfolding of doctrine. These things are to be noted in this latest view of the death of the Christian. First, that there is no unconscious sleep: ‘Absent from the body, present with the Lord.” There is no suggestion even of a conscious interval between the departure of soul and spirit from this earthly tabernacle, and the conscious and immediate presence of the Lord Himself.
But the other comforting and wonderful revelation is that the idea of a disembodied soul and spirit is, as concerns the Christian, unbiblical. Read carefully the first five verses of that chapter, and you will see that the present body is looked upon as a tabernacle or tent in which we are living, and that when we pass out from this tent-dwelling we are clothed upon with a “house from heaven.” This is not the resurrection body, but it is a habitation in which we dwell and through which we may have communion with others there.
Then the word “present with the Lord’ is really, ‘‘at home with the Lord,” and this at once conveys the idea of fellowship. A home is not a solitary place, it is a place where the family live; and in the spiritual body, the house from heaven, the blessed dead inhabit that heaven-home. The question may arise, do they know what is transpiring here? There is not a single scripture that warrants us in supposing they do. But we may be sure they have such a sense of the safety of those in Jesus whom they have left behind, and of the shepherd care of the Lord over them, that they are not occupied with our sufferings and trials as we are. The falls and mishaps of our children seem very great to them, but only call out a comforting word or a caress from us. We know that they are not really so serious as they seem to be to the child. That is undoubtedly the Father’s view, since He calls us “dear children” and “little children.” And those in glory with Him must share that view. They are happy concerning us because they know our names are written in “the book of life’ and that we shall soon meet them.
What is the meaning of ‘death’ in Revelation
20:13, 14?
The grave. As to their spirits, the wicked dead are in hades; as to their bodies, in the grave and in the sea.
If the wicked are to be punished with “everlasting destruction’? (2 Thess. 1:9), how can it be taught that the wicked suffer eternal torment?
“Everlasting destruction,” in 2 Thessalonians 1:9, is to be construed as part of the whole passage. The “flaming fire’ of verse 8 is the shekinah glory in which Christ will appear at the second advent, not the lake of fire, in which no one could suppose that the Lord Jesus is “‘revealed from heaven.” Doubtless the final abode of “them that know not God, and obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ,’ is the lake of fire, but that is not in view here. The Lord is revealed in glory and the wicked are punished with everlasting ‘destruction from the presence of the Lord’’ — ~. e., with everlasting exclusion from His presence. The nature of their punishment is dealt with in other passages. That it is not “destruction” in the sense of annihilation is proved from these passages.
Do the Scriptures refer to literal fire in connection with the suffering of the wicked?
Men of God, of equal soundness in the faith, purity of life and power in service, are divided upon the question of the literal interpretation of the passages which speak of “fire” in connection with the suffering of the wicked. Our Lord speaks in the same sentence of an undying worm and of unquenched fire (Mark 9:44, 46, 48). Brethren who teach the figurative interpretation of these and like passages contend that physical fire could only inflict physical suffering, and that since even in the earth life mental or spiritual sufferings are inconceivably more dreadful than those of the material body, it is to rob the penal passages of their terror to suppose them to refer to physical torment. The controversy (in so far as there is one) is not over what Scripture says, but what it means. It is not a controversy over the fact of unending suffering for sin — in which most biblical scholars agree — but only as to the nature of that suffering.
How does the scriptural doctrine of death compare with this subject as treated in much of the current literature?
It is impossible to take up fully the question of the biblical doctrine of death. It may be said, however, that very much in the current treatment of that subject in literature and from the pulpit is sentimental nonsense and worse. It is part of that neo-paganism which is filling religious thought with amazing rapidity. We are treated to “symphonies” of life and “foot-paths” to peace which might have been written by Epictetus and which have not one distinctively Christian element. Along with this pagan conception of life we might expect to find, and in fact do find, a corresponding pagan conception of death. Walt Whitman gives perfect expression to this neo-paganism when he calls death ‘“‘the holiest minister of heaven,” and exclaims:
“Praise! praise! praise! For sure-entwining arms of cool-enfolding death.”
Such talk goes far to justify suicide — as, indeed, the justification of suicide was its chief pagan use. If death is “sane and sacred,” and “God’s servant,” then let us all flee to it from the “whips and scorns of time.”
Needless to say that such sentimental fustian, perhaps too mawkish and silly to do much harm, is never found in Scripture concerning death. There, death is an “enemy”
and is to be cast into the lake of fire. The perfect fruition of Christ’s redeeming work is to be the “destruction” of death. Death is the direct antipodes of Christ, who is “the life.” Already, in the cross, death is defeated, and can now pass upon no believer, for no Christian ever “‘tastes death,” but only “falls on sleep.” In this sense death is ours already (1 Cor. 3:22), but is still an enemy, and the very last enemy to be destroyed (1 Cor. 15:26). It still ‘remains true that “sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death” (James 1:15); and that the three “groans” of Romans 8:22, 23, 26, ascend from creation, the Church and the Holy Spirit because of death.
Is there any scriptural warrant for believing that the spirits of our loved ones are round about us — ‘“‘a cloud of witnesses” (Heb. 12:1)?
There is no clear biblical warrant for the thought that the Christian dead are watching us. That they are here, round about us, though unseen, is mere sentimentality or superstition. ‘They are, as to spirit and soul “with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8); and He is in heaven (Acts 1:11; 7:56; Rev. 3:21). It is, however, implied that they are made aware of the conversions of those whom they love (Luke 15:10). There is no reason why our Lord may not properly be asked, in submission of course to His will, to convey messages to our holy dead.
The “cloud of witnesses” of Hebrews 12:1 are not witnesses of us, but those just referred to in chapter 11, who have witnessed to Jesus. In the writer’s glowing words they have been, as it were, evolved; it is as if we were “compassed”’ by them.
Why is the doctrine concerning life after death, as portrayed in the Old Testament, so different from its outlook in the New Testament?
The difference between the Old Testament doctrine concerning the life after death and the doctrine of the New Testament is not one of contrast, but of development. It is the great law of Scripture that revelation proceeds by stages from the simple to the complex, from the rudimentary to the final. “First the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear.”
Speaking broadly, the Old Testament horizon was the grave. Life was not conditioned upon eternal rewards, but temporal. The distinctive blessings promised to Israel were: “In the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy ground, and the fruit of thy cattle,’ ete. Gradually light dawned upon the after-world, but it was broken and dim. With the coming of Christ all that was changed. He “brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Tim. 1:10). Life and immortality were existent before Christ, but not clearly revealed.
- Moreover, with the death, resurrection and ascension of Christ, a fundamental change took place. Before His ascension the just and the unjust alike went to Sheol, or Hades. There the just abode in their own room or place of “paradise.” Now paradise is in heaven itself, and the just at death go to be ‘“‘at home with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:1-8; Eph. 4:8-10; 2 Cor. 12:1-4).
Where, now, are the souls of the redeemed?
The Scriptures teach that the souls of the redeemed pass at once into the presence of Christ at death (Luke 23:43; Acts 7:59; 2 Cor. 5:6-8; Phil. 1:28; Rev. 6:9-11).
Is there any difference between eternity and immortality?
A little study of the words “eternity” and “immortality” might be interesting and helpful. So much is missed from the original in the English translation of words. For instance, in 1 Timothy 6:16, 1 Corinthians 15:53, 54, we find the word “immortal” or “immortality” from the Greek word athanasia, meaning deathlessness, or eternal existence. The word relates to the body, as the context shows, and means simply “this dying must put on undyingness.” Mortal means ‘“‘dying” (not dead). Now we are in a dying body — not dead — then we shall ‘“‘put on” an undying body (1 Cor. 15). When God created man He breathed into him the breath of life — a wholly different thing from the life of beasts. Man only has immortality; the beasts have not. Again, in 2 Timothy 1:10, 1 Timothy 1:17, Romans 2:7, the same word is used, only in the Greek the word used is aphtharsia, meaning incorruption. So the same word, immortality, is used to express two different ideas, — time and quality. The word eternal has reference to duration only.
What is the difference between Sheol and Hades,
paradise and heaven?
Sheol is the exact Old Testament equivalent of Hades in the New Testament. Both refer simply to the abode of the departed. Until our Lord’s ascension the souls of all the dead went to Sheol, or Hades. But the condition of the righteous and of the unrighteous there differed widely. This is shown in Luke 16:19-26. Between the righteous and the unrighteous a great gulf was indeed fixed, and the former were comforted, the latter tormented. The Jews distinguished the place of the comforted in Hades as Abraham’s bosom, or paradise. Our Lord adopted both expressions. When therefore, He promised the repentant thief a place with Him that day in paradise, He spoke of the place whither He Himself should go.
But when our Lord ascended into heaven, He took with Him those in paradise, and though paradise still exists as the abode of the blessed dead pending the resurrection, it is now in the third heaven, or the very place of our Lord’s own presence. This appears from Ephesians 4:8, R.V., and 2 Corinthians 12:2-4. Christ ascending led a
4A DR. C. I. SCOFIELD’S QUESTION BOX
multitude of captives; and Paul, caught up into the third heaven, found himself in paradise.
Hence it is now true that departing saints go, not into unconscious sleep with a mouldering body in the grave, but into paradise, which is in the third heaven, and so they are “‘present with the Lord’ (2 Cor. 5:8).
How is the promise that believers shall never die, in John 11:26, to be understood?
It is not exemption from physical death. All of Christ’s disciples died. The “ast enemy that shall be destroyed fs death” (1 Cor. 15:26).
Will the joys of heaven, as well as the punishment of the lost, be alike for all?
No. There are degrees both in the punishment of the lost and in the rewards of the saved (1 Cor. 8:13-15; Luke 19:17-19; Rev. 22:12; Rev. 20:12; Luke 12:47, 48).