I was rather shocked to see the following in your paper, the Present Truth, page 502, August 7th: [This is quoted from article 113, "The Resurrection of the Body," from Present Truth, August 7, 1902.]
"It is wholly an assumption, unwarranted by the Scriptures, that we are present with the Lord as soon as the body dies."
May I ask you to kindly look at the following scripture:
"Man dies ... and where is he?" (Job 14:10)
"Stephen calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." (Acts 7:57-60)
"Devout men carried Stephen to his burial." (Acts 8:2) His spirit went up to be with the Lord, and his body went to the grave.
"Having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ." (Philippians 1:23-24)
"Absent from the body and present with the Lord." (2 Corinthians 5:5-8)
"I must shortly put off this tabernacle." (2 Peter 1:13-14)
"The rich man died, and was buried; and in hell," (Luke 16:19-31)--His body went to the grave, and his soul still lives. He could see, feel, remember, reason, and pray; but it was too late.
The second coming of Christ: Soul and body reunited. (Acts 1:9-11; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; Revelation 22:20)
Believe me, yours faithfully.
Our friend has imposed a large task on me; for to quote these texts in full, and so to open them up that each reader shall be able to see exactly what they say, and have his mind cleared of false conceptions concerning them, would take many hours' writing, and fill an entire number of the paper.
Perhaps, however, he means only that the editor shall read them for his own private benefit. I thank him for his kindly effort to instruct; but must in turn ask him to read the article again, in the Present Truth from which he quotes; for in it several of these texts are quoted, and treated of at some length. I have myself read them all many hundreds of times; and though no one can ever study any portion of the Bible so much that he can learn no more from it, I know from my study of these that I shall never be able to find any indication in them of a conscious existence of the spirit or soul of man apart from the body. Such an idea is opposed to the very nature of man.
May I be permitted to say in all kindness, that the way in which my friend has thrown these texts together, and the statements he interjects about some of them, are clear evidence that he has not given them much thought; and so, although I have not space for any extended study of the scriptures cited, any one of which would furnish sufficient matter for one number of the paper, I will briefly note at least a few of them, for the benefit both of my correspondent and of many others who are feeling after the truth. I wish, however, they would first read again the article referred to in the Present Truth of August 7. A habit of careful reading would often save much misunderstanding.
Man Dies, and Where is He?
To begin with the first text cited: "Man dies and wastes away; yea, man gives up the ghost, and where is he?" (Job 14:10)
Yes; where is he? He is not. It is a striking instance of the power of theology to bias a man's judgment and perception, that a person can think he sees in this verse any argument for the conscious existence of man in death. We refer to theology in its ordinary signification--the study of sacred things from the basis of philosophy, and not of the Bible.
The patriarch answers his own question, "Where is he?" Read: "If a man die, shall he live again? All the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come. You shall call, and I will answer You: You will have a desire to the work of your hands." (Job 14:14-15)
Read 1 Corinthians 15:51-54 for a statement as to what the "change" is, of which He speaks, and when it will take place. It is at His second coming that Christ will call, and the dead will answer Him. (See 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17; John 5:28-29) And where will they "wait" till their "change" comes? Here is the answer: "If I wait, the grave is my house; I have made my bed in darkness. I have said to corruption, You are my father; to the worm, You are my mother, and my sister." (Job 17:13-14)
Let us go back to the beginning, and we shall be saved much confusion. The simple story of the creation of man helps us to unravel many a tangled web. "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)
That is the making of man; here is his unmaking: "Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was; and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it." (Ecclesiastes 12:7)
Or this, spoken of God: "If He gather to himself His Spirit and His breath; All flesh shall perish together, and man shall turn again unto dust." (Job 34:14-15)
It is impossible for anybody to find in these scriptures anything else than that at death man is resolved into his component parts, each in the same state as it was before it was used in building the man. Whatever is true of the elements composing a man, after his death, was true of them before his existence; and there can be no argument for the conscious existence of man in death that does not just as fully prove his pre-existence.
Plato, to whom Christians are indebted for the doctrine of the so-called "immortality of the soul," taught its pre-existence. Indeed, his argument for man's natural immortality was based on his belief in the pre-existence of the soul. It is strange that men accept the structure that Plato built, and reject the foundation.
Let us proceed with our texts. We have the case of Stephen, calling on God, and saying, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." (Acts 7:59)
But please notice that this intimates nothing as to the state of the spirit when the Lord receives it. The fact that the spirit returns to God, who gave it, is not in question. All that the Present Truth has taught is that when man dies, and the parts of which he is composed are dissolved, he no longer exists as man. The parts still exist just as they were before he was created; but the man has ceased to be. The Lord watches over the dust of His saints, to bring them forth from the grave; and He also keeps their spirit for them; for it came from Him, and was His all the time they had it. His receiving their spirit is simply the assurance that they shall live again.
Departing and Being with Christ Is Not Death
"For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better: Nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you." (Philippians 1:23-24)
It is utterly impossible for anybody to understand these two verses without studying the connection. To snatch an expression here and there from the Bible, on the run, as it were, and then to build a theory upon it, from the mere sound of the words, is not Bible study.
Reading the context, we find that Paul says that he does not know which he would choose--life or death--if the choice were given him. His only desire was that Christ might be magnified, by his life or by his death; but by which means Christ would receive the greater glory, he did not know, and so he had no choice.
Now it is not crediting the apostle with good sense to say that he first says he does not know which he would choose, whether life or death, and that then in the very same breath he declares that he has an intense desire to die! That would be nonsense.
What he actually says is this: he had no choice between life here on the earth and death; but he had an intense longing for something else, namely, to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better than either of the other two. And this shows us most clearly that departing and being with Christ is something entirely different from death.
So the text which is commonly imagined to teach that men go to be with Christ in death, proves the exact opposite. If Paul continued on this earth, or if he died, he would not be with Christ, the thing for which he longed.
When We Are "Clothed" with Immortality
Now we must place by the side of this text two others that have been referred to. The first is 2 Corinthians 5:1-8. Here three states are referred to, as in the one just considered. These three states are:
a) This present;
b) Unclothed; and
c) Clothed.
Let us read a portion: "We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon withour house which is from heaven: If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked. For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life." (2 Corinthians 5:1-4)
Noting the statements carefully, we see that to be "clothed," or "clothed upon," is to have mortality swallowed up of life. Between that and this present state there is a third condition possible, namely, "unclothed," which the apostle did not long for. The thing desired was the swallowing up of mortality.
Now read 1 Corinthians 15:51-54, and you will see that the swallowing up of death,--immortality,--and putting on of immortality is at the sounding of the last trumpet, when the Lord shall descend. Note the words: "This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality." (1 Corinthians 15:53)
You see we have here an exact parallel to 2 Corinthians 5:2-4. The clothing to be desired is immortality,--the immortal body. If we die,--put off this tabernacle,--we are naked; but if we receive immortality, then we are clothed, and are present with the Lord.
How plain it is from the scriptures that death, instead of bringing us into the presence of Christ, is the widest possible separation from Him. Now read 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18. where it is stated when the Lord descends from heaven with a shout, and with the trump of God, the dead in Christ shall rise first, incorruptible, and the living saints will then "be caught up together with them, ... to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord." (1 Thessalonians 4:17)
When the Lord comes, and not till then, all the saints of God, both living and dead, are changed from mortality to immortality. Then, and only then, both those who are still in this tabernacle, and those who have put off this tabernacle, and are dead, "unclothed," will be "clothed upon" with immortality; and thus, not being naked, they will be fit for the presence of the King.
This covers the most of the texts referred to, and makes the subject under consideration very plain, and we will not take space for anything further at present. Remember, however, that there is no self-contradiction in the Scriptures, and every other portion exactly coincides with those that we have very briefly studied. They teach us that the Lord must come for us, if we are ever with Him, and that His coming is the one hope of the church.
The Truth That Saves
What difference does it make, anyhow, whether we believe that we go to be with Christ in death, or not? It makes all the difference between truth and error; and nobody is saved by error. God has chosen us "to salvation, through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the word." (2 Thessalonians 2:13,KJV & RV)
The Word of truth is the Gospel of our salvation. The theory that men go to be with the Lord at death, makes of no effect a large portion of the Bible, and makes useless the most precious promises of Christ. It nullifies the teaching of the resurrection, and causes people to lose sight of the coming of Christ; for if the dead saints were already with Christ, there would be no use for Him to come for them. Thus this theory makes nonsense of all the promises concerning the coming of Christ and the resurrection. Surely this is reason enough for making the truth prominent.
Again: Those who believe that the dead are not dead at all, but are with Christ, alive and conscious, have absolutely no safeguard against the deception of Spiritualism. It is the fact that cannot be controverted, that people have seen, and do see, bodies that exactly resemble their dead friends, and that profess to be such. Moreover these spirits, professing to come from the other world often show themselves accurately acquainted with the private life of those to whom they appear, telling things known only by the individual and the dead friend.
Now if a man believes that his friend is in heaven, conscious of all that is going on here below, such an appearance and communication would be sufficient to convince him that his departed friend had returned. And then, having gone that far, contrary to the Scriptures, it would be the most natural thing in the world for him to accept any statement that the spirit might make, however contrary to the Bible it might be.
But everyone who adheres to the Bible statement that "the dead know not any thing," (Ecclesiastes 9:5) that "His sons come to honor, and he knows it not; and they are brought low, but he perceives it not of them," (Job 14:21) cannot possibly be deceived by the false pretenses of Satan and his evil angels.
Still further: The doctrine of the resurrection is made a wholly unnecessary thing by the theory that men go to heaven at death. And when that is lost sight of, it is an easy step to lose sight of the power of the resurrection, by which we triumph over sin. And this is why Spiritualism inevitably tends to immorality. No man is able to save himself from sin; and so, no matter how well-meaning a person may be, if a person cut himself off from the truth that saves, he must sooner or later land in the pit of corruption.--Present Truth, September 25, 1902.
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Last week we promised an article on the subject of people taking the Lord's money--the tithe or offerings--to help themselves out of difficulty. We are sorry that a press of other matter has crowded it out of this number, but it will keep till next week.
We sometimes receive letters asking us to explain entire chapters in the "Editor's Private Corner," a request which for obvious reasons cannot possibly be complied with. To say nothing of the space required, a general exposition might miss entirely the thing which the one making the request had in mind. Questions must have some definite point in view, and then they can be answered.
Whenever a man pays a debt, the creditor gives him a receipt. Even so does the Lord, but not as man does. God, as the Great King, cannot give in any ordinary way. His receipt, therefore, is not a mere slip of paper; He acknowledges the payment of a debt by giving the debtor far more than he paid. This makes the poor man's debt to God the greater, and as he seeks to discharge it, God again acknowledges by returning more. One can afford to be honest with God. Generous with Him we cannot be, for His generosity to us makes that impossible.--Present Truth, September 25, 1902.