The First Great
Deception
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They suffer punishment
varying in duration and intensity,
“according to their works,”
but finally ending in the second
death. Since it is impossible for
God, consistently with His justice
and mercy, to save the sinner in his
sins, He deprives him of the
existence that his transgressions
have forfeited and of which he has
proved himself unworthy. Says an
inspired writer: “Yet a little
while, and the wicked shall not be:
yea, thou shalt diligently consider
his place, and it shall not be.”
And another declares: “They
shall be as though they had not
been.” Psalm 37:10; Obadiah 16.
Covered with infamy, they sink into
hopeless, eternal oblivion.
Thus will be made an
end of sin, with all the woe and ruin
that have resulted from it. Says the
psalmist: “Thou hast destroyed
the wicked, Thou hast put out their
name forever and ever. O thou enemy,
destructions are come to a perpetual
end.” Psalm 9: 5,6. John, in the
Revelation, looking forward to the
eternal state, hears a universal
anthem of praise undisturbed by one
note of discord. Every creature in
heaven and earth was heard ascribing
glory to God. Revelation 5:13. There
will then be no lost souls to
blaspheme God as they writhe in
never-ending torment; no wretched
beings in hell will mingle their
shrieks with the songs of the saved.
Upon the fundamental
error of natural immortality rests
the doctrine of conscientious in
death – a doctrine, like eternal
torment, opposed to the teachings of
the Scriptures, to the dictates of
reason, and to our feelings of
humanity. According to the popular
belief, the redeemed in heaven are
acquainted with all that takes place
on the earth and especially with the
lives of the friends whom they have
left behind. However, how could it be
a source of happiness to the dead to
know the troubles of the living, to
witness the sins committed by their
own loved ones, and to see them
enduring all the sorrows,
disappointments, and anguish of life?
How much of heaven’s bliss would
be enjoyed by those who were hovering
over their friends on earth? And how
utterly revolting is the belief that
as soon as the breath leaves the body
the soul of the impenitent it
consigned to the flames of hell! To
what depths of anguish must those be
plunged who see their friends passing
to the grave unprepared, to enter
upon an eternity of woe and sin! Many
have been driven to insanity by this
harrowing thought.
What says the
Scriptures concerning these things?
David declares that man is not
conscious in death. “His breath
goeth forth, he returneth to his
earth; in that day his thoughts
perish.” Psalm 146:4. Solomon
bears the same testimony: “the
living know that they shall die: but
the dead know not anything.”
“Their love, and their hatred,
and their envy, is now perished;
neither have they any more a portion
forever in anything that is done
under the sun.” “There is
no work, nor device, nor knowledge,
nor wisdom, in the grave, whither
thou goest.” Ecclesiastes 9:5,
6, 10.
When, in answer to his
prayer, Hezekiah’s life was
prolonged fifteen years, the grateful
king rendered to God a tribute of
praise for His great mercy. In his
song he tells the reason why he thus
rejoices: “The grave cannot
praise Thee, death cannot celebrate
Thee: they that go down to the pit
cannot hope for Thy truth. The
living, the living, he shall praise
Thee, as I do this day.” Isaiah
38: 18,19. Popular theology
represents the righteous dead as in
heaven, entered into bliss and
praising God with an immortal tongue;
but Hezekiah could see no glorious
prospect in death. With these words
agrees the testimony of the psalmist:
“In death there is no
remembrance of Thee: in the grave who
shall give Thee thanks?”
“The dead praise not the Lord,
neither any that go down into
silence.” Psalm 6:5; 115:17.
Peter on the Day of
Pentecost declared that the patriarch
David “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. The fact that David
remains in the grave until the
resurrection proves that the
righteous do not go to heaven at
death. It is only through the
resurrection, and by virtue of the
fact that Christ has risen, that
David can at last sit at the right
hand of God.
Paul said: “If
the dead rise not, then is not Christ
raised: and if Christ be not raised,
your faith is vain; ye are yet in
your sins. Then they also which are
fallen asleep in Christ are
perished.” 1 Corinthians 15:
16-18. If for four thousand years the
righteous had gone directly to heaven
at death, how could Paul have said
that if there is no resurrection,
“they also which are fallen
asleep in Christ are perished?”
No resurrection would be necessary.
The martyr Tyndale,
referring to the state of the dead,
declared: “I confess openly,
that I am persuaded that they be
already in the full glory that Christ
is in, or the elect angels of God are
in. Neither is it any article of my
faith; for if it were so, I see not
but then the preaching of the
resurrection of the flesh were a
thing in vain.” –William
Tyndale, Preface to New Testament
(ed. 1534). Reprinted in British
Reformers – Tindal, firth,
Barnes, page 349.
It is an undeniable
fact that the hope of immortal
blessedness at death has led to a
widespread neglect of the Bible
doctrine of the resurrection. This
tendency was remarked by Dr. Adam
Clarke, who said: “The doctrine
of the resurrection appears to have
been thought of much more consequence
among the primitive Christians than
it is now! How is this? The apostles
were continually insisting on it, and
exciting the followers of God to
diligence, obedience, and
cheerfulness through it. And their
successors in the present day seldom
mention it. So apostles preached, and
so primitive Christians believed; so
we preach, and so our hearers
believe. There is not a doctrine in
the gospel on which more stress is
laid; and there is not a doctrine in
the present system of preaching which
is treated with more neglect!”
– Commentary, remarks on 1
Corinthians 15, paragraph 3.
This has continued
until the glorious truth of the
resurrection has been almost wholly
obscured and lost sight of by the
Christian world. Thus a leading
religious writer, a commenting on the
words of Paul in 1 Thessalonians 4:
13-18, says: “For all practical
purposes of comfort the doctrine of
the blessed immortality of the
righteous takes the place for us of
any doubtful doctrine of the
Lord’s second coming. At our
death, the Lord comes for us. That is
what we are to wait and watch for.
The dead are already passed into
glory. They do not wait for the trump
for their judgment and
blessedness.”
However, when about to
leave His disciples, Jesus did not
tell them that they would soon come
to Him. “I go to prepare a place
for you,” He said. “And if
I go and prepare a place for you, I
will come again, and receive you unto
Myself.” John 14: 2,3. And Paul
tells us, further, that “the
Lord Himself shall descend from
heaven with a shout, with the voice
of the Archangel, and with the trump
of God: and the dead in Christ shall
rise first: then we which are alive
and remain shall be caught up
together with them in the clouds, to
meet the Lord in the air: and so
shall we ever be with the Lord.”
And he adds: “comfort one
another with these words.” 1
Thessalonians 4: 16-18. How wide the
contrast between these words of
comfort and those of the Universalist
minister previously quoted! The
latter consoled the bereaved friends
with the assurance that, however
sinful the dead might have been, when
he breathed out his life here is to
be received among the angels. Paul
points his brethren to the future
coming of the Lord, when the fetters
of the tomb shall be broken, and the
‘dead in Christ” shall be
raised to eternal life.
Before any can enter
the mansions of the blessed, their
cases must be investigated, and their
characters and their deeds must pass
in review before God. All are to be
judged according to the things
written in the books and to be
rewarded as their works have been.
This judgment does not take place at
death. Mark the words of Paul:
“He hath appointed a day, in
which He will judge the world in
righteousness by that Man whom he
hath ordained; whereof He hath given
assurance unto all men, in that He
hath raised Him from the dead.”
Acts 17:31. Here the apostle plainly
stated that a specified time, then
future, had been fixed upon for the
judgment of the world.
Jude refers to the
same period: “The angels which
kept not their first estate, but left
their own habitation, He hath
reserved in everlasting chains under
darkness unto the judgment of the
great day.” And again, he quotes
the words of Enoch: “Behold, the
Lord cometh with ten thousands of His
saints, to execute judgment upon
all.” Jude 6, 14, 15. John
declares that he “saw the dead,
small and great, stand before God;
and the books were opened:… and
the dead were judged out of those
things which were written in the
books.” Revelation 20:12.
However, if the dead
are already enjoying the bliss of
heaven or writhing in the flames of
hell, what need of a future judgment?
The teachings of God’s word on
these important points are neither
obscure nor contradictory; they may
be understood by common minds.
However, what candid mind can see
either wisdom or justice in the
current theory? Will the righteous,
after the investigation of their
cases at the judgment, receive the
commendation, “Well done, thou
good and faithful
servant:….enter thou into the
joy of thy Lord,” when they have
been dwelling in His presence,
perhaps for long ages? Are the
wicked summoned from the place of
torment to receive sentence from the
Judge of all the earth: “Depart
from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting
fire?” Matthew 25: 21, 41. Oh,
solemn mockery! Shameful impeachment
of the wisdom and justice of God!
The theory of the
immortality of the soul was one of
those false doctrines that Rome,
borrowing from paganism, incorporated
into the religion of Christendom.
Martin Luther classed it with the
“monstrous fables that form part
of the Roman dunghill of
decretals.” – E. Petavel,
The Problem of Immortality, page 255.
Commenting on the
words of Solomon in Ecclesiastes,
that the dead know not anything, the
Reformer says: “another place
proving that the dead have no …
feeling. There is, saith he, no duty,
no science, no knowledge, no wisdom
there. Solomon judgeth that the dead
are asleep, and feel nothing at all.
For the dead lie there, accounting
neither days nor years, but when they
are awaked, they shall seem to have
slept scarce one minute.” –
Martin Luther, Exposition of
Solomon’s Booke Called
Ecclesiastes, page 152.
Nowhere in the Sacred
Scriptures is found the statement
that the righteous go to their reward
or the wicked to their punishment at
death. The patriarchs and prophets
have left no such assurance. Christ
and His apostles have given no hint
of it. The Bible clearly teaches that
the dead do not go immediately to
heaven. They are represented as
sleeping until the resurrection. 1
Thessalonians 4:14; Job 14: 10-12.
In the very day when
the silver cord is loosed and the
golden bowl broken (Ecclesiastes
12:6), man’s thoughts perish.
They that go down to the grave are in
silence. They know no more of
anything that is done under the sun.
Job 14:21. Blessed rest for the weary
righteous! Time, be it long or short,
is but a moment to them. They sleep;
they are awakened by the trump of God
to a glorious immortality. “For
the trumpet shall sound, and the dead
shall be raised incorruptible….
So when this
corruptible shall have put on
incorruption, and this mortal shall
have put on immortality, then shall
be brought to pass the saying that is
written. Death is swallowed up in
victory.” 1 Corinthians 15:
52-54. As they are called forth from
their deep slumber, they begin to
think just where they ceased. The
last sensation was the pang of death;
the last thought, that they were
falling beneath the power of the
grave. When they arise from the tomb,
their first glad thought will be
echoed in the triumphal shout:
“O death, where is thy sting? O
grave, where is thy victory?”
Verse 55.
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