In your issue of the 25th (Actually the 14th of March) you have an article on "Death and the Resurrection," for which I thank you much. One cannot deny these truths you state from the Word, and as a brother seeking for light, and a clear conception of this wonderful event, may I ask you to help me? I feel sure what I ask will be of much benefit to my fellow-readers who are seeking after the truth.
We know that the body lies in the grave until the resurrection, but where does the spirit dwell? "And behold there appeared Moses and Elijah talking with Him," (Matthew 17:23) and yet Moses and Elijah had been dead for a long period. When a child dies before it has reached the age to discern right from wrong, is it unconscious? Does it not grow and develop in the heavenly land? Does not John in the Revelation tell us of the great host before the throne of God, serving Him day and night in His temple? He says that these are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb.
I know that these bodies will be changed in the twinkling of an eye, but I am at a loss to know about the departed spirits: does not the soul live on in perpetual consciousness and development, until through the resurrection power, soul and body are again united?
The article on "Death and the Resurrection," [This is article 35 in this collection, "From Death to the Resurrection."] to which you refer, was one of a series contained in Nos. 10-18 in which you will find the answers to most of your questions. We will, however, consider briefly the points that you mentioned.
Reference to 2 Kings 2 will remind you that Elijah, so far from having "been dead for a long period," was, like Enoch, translated without seeing death, and therefore his appearance with Christ upon the amount of transfiguration proves nothing concerning the state of the dead.
Moses died upon Mount Nebo, and the Lord buried him, but the place of his sepulchre was unknown. Nevertheless, we have in Jude 9 the proof of the resurrection of his body, which accounts for his appearance also on the mountain. We have the evidence of the Scriptures that the body of neither of these men was in the grave. Elijah did not pass through the tomb, and Moses was raised from the dead by Christ, in spite of the opposition of Satan who had the power of death, and who sought to retain his hold upon his body.
On the other hand, contrast with the statement concerning Moses that "no man knows of his sepulchre unto this day," (Deuteronomy 34:6) the words of Peter concerning David, "that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day." (Acts 2:29)
This he said as proof of the fact that: "David is not ascended into the heavens," (Acts 2:34) thus showing that man has no conscious existence apart from his body. The sepulchre containing David's ashes, was considered by Peter, speaking when he was filled with the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, sufficient evidence that David had no conscious existence elsewhere.
The Gate of Death and the Gate of Life
The children to whom you refer are well represented by the babes that Herod slew in order to rid himself of the infant Christ. "Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying, A voice was heard in Ramah, Weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children; And she would not be comforted, because they are not." (Matthew 2:17-18,RV)
If you turn to the prophecy in Jeremiah from which this is quoted, you will find the message of comfort that God sent to these mourning mothers: "Refrain your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears: for your work shall be rewarded, says the Lord; and they shall come again from the land of the enemy." (Jeremiah 31:16)
This land of the enemy Satan, the adversary, is the grave, to which death is the gate of entrance. And the comfort that the Lord gives to mothers is, not that their little ones have already entered upon a higher and more glorious existence, but that they shall be brought back from the grave.
Christ, in His conflict with the enemy to recover His own, has "pressed the battle to the gate." (Isaiah 28:6) He has passed through the gate of death, and secured the key to the enemy's citadel. He has forced a way out of the enemy's prison-house by "the power of His endless life." (Hebrews 7:16)
Through the gate of death man enters the enemy's land; through the gate of life he is brought back again by Him who has "spoiled principalities and powers." (Colossians 2:15)
Having opened "This gate of the Lord, into which the righteous shall enter," (Psalm 118:20) "[by] the power of His resurrection," (Philippians 3:10) Christ will, when the last enemy death is destroyed, conduct through it, by the resurrection, all those whom He has rescued from the hand of Satan. Then, and not till then, will the children come, with all the redeemed, from "the land of the enemy."
Moreover, if, as you suggest, the children were growing and developing in heaven, would not the resurrection of their infant bodies be somewhat incongruous?
John certainly does, in the book of Revelation, speak of the host of the redeemed whom he saw standing before the throne of God. But you must bear in mind in reading this book that things that John saw in vision on the Isle of Patmos, and which he was told to write, were most of them "the things that must come to pass hereafter." (Revelation 4:1; 1:19,RV)
The Spirit in Man
In order that you may the better comprehend the answer to your question about the dwelling-place of the departed spirits, we must consider for a moment the nature of the Spirit that animates man. "There is a Spirit in man, and the breath of the Almighty gives them understanding." (Job 32:8,RV)
The Spirit in man is the breath of God, as is evident from the account of man's creation: "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." (Genesis 2:7)
Man was formed from the dust of the ground, to be a dwellingplace for the Spirit of God. "What! know you not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you?" (1 Corinthians 6:19)
In our mortal bodies dwells the eternal Spirit of Him, "who only has immortality." (1 Timothy 6:16)
It is this that gives organization, individuality and understanding to the dust of which our bodies are composed. Man has not an immortal spirit of his own inhabiting his body; but he himself is the dwelling-place of the immortal Spirit of God. Therefore, "if He gather unto himself His Spirit and His breath; All flesh shall perish together, and man shall turn again unto dust." (Job 34:14-15)
The experience of death and the resurrection is summed up in two verses: "You gather in their breath, they die, and return to their dust. You send forth your Spirit, they are created, and You renew the face of the earth." (Psalm 104:29-30,RV,margin)
Our Everlasting Dwelling-Place
In the sublime 90th Psalm, Moses the man of God, speaking of the subject that we are considering, comforts himself with the following assurance: "Lord, You have been our dwelling-place in all generations. ... You turn man to dust, and say, Return [come again] you children of men. For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is passed, and as a watch in the night." (Psalm 90:1,3-4)
"In all generations," from the beginning, God has been our dwelling-place, for: "Known unto God are all His works from the beginning." (Acts 19:18)
We existed in the Divine mind, and have our being in the thought of God, ages before we were brought into visible and conscious existence. All visible things in the universe are but the uttered thoughts of God, and "because of His will they were created." (Revelation 4:11,RV)
They were in Him, before they were created. Thus, "known unto God" only, we slept unconscious in the bosom of the Father, until, the fullness of time being come, He sent us forth and we awoke in this world, clothed with "a body, as it has pleased Him." (1 Corinthians 15:38)
Of David we are told that he, "having served his own generation by the will of God, fell asleep, and was gathered to his fathers, and saw corruption." (Acts 13:36)
And thus it is with every child of God: having accomplished the will of God in this world, God gathers to himself His Spirit, the body given to him turns to dust, and again he sleeps in Jesus, as in the beginning. But for the Cross of Christ it would not have been so, for it is this that has hallowed death into sleep, and changed the grave into a bed.
Those who are merely sleeping have not ceased to be. This "Moses showed at the bush, when he called the Lord the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. For He is not the God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto Him." (Luke 20:38-39)
These words were spoken by Jesus to prove to the Sadducees "that the dead are raised." (Luke 20:37)
So long as God keeps us in mind, we dwell in Him and are safe, even though we have no separate, conscious existence. That which will finally blot out the wicked from the universe, will be the fact that God puts them from His mind, and they cease to be in His thought.
He who sent us forth into the flesh by His Spirit, giving us visible form and conscious life, will, when the time comes for those who sleep in Him to awaken, bring forth from the dust of the earth glorified, immortal bodies for His everlasting habitation. For, "[He] turns man to dust, and says, Come again, you children of men." (Psalm 90:3,NASB & Coverdale)
And the space of time that intervenes between the turning into dust, and the return in response to His call, even though it be a thousand years, is in His sight "but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night." (Psalm 90:4,NASB & Coverdale)
What matter, then, though for a while we pass out of sight and consciousness, sleeping in Jesus, hidden in the bosom of God, "our dwelling-place in all generations"?--Present Truth, May 16, 1901.