WHERE ARE THE
DEAD?
"Men and brethren, let me
freely speak to you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his
sepulchre is with us unto this day....For David is not ascended into the Heavens."--Acts
2:29,34.
Accepting the recognized fact that the whole world
is rapidly going down into death and the estimate that twenty thousand millions of our
neighbors and friends have already gone thither, our topic will be recognized by all as a
most pertinent one. To be without thought on this subject or to discuss it lightly should
be esteemed a mark of insanity, signifying as little reasoning capacity respecting it as
that possessed by the brute creation. Whatever our previous thoughts on the subject have
been, we are all inquirers for the truth, and as such endeavoring to have our minds as
free as possible from superstition and error. More than this I trust that, living in this
blessed land so highly favored of God, and having some acquaintance with His Blessed Book,
the Bible, we have learned to appreciate it as a Divine Revelation, able to make us wise
in the wisdom which cometh from Above.
We hope, dear friends, that the growing spirit
of scepticism has not seriously attacked our faith in this Blessed Book. We are well
aware, however, that today the intellectual world, under the lead of so-called Higher
Critics, is rushing madly onward into infidelity, into disbelief of the Bible as an
inspired revelation from God. True, this infidelity is not the foul-mouthed kind of Thomas
Paine or Robert Ingersoll, but it is all the more forceful in its undermining of Christian
faith because its advocates include some of the brightest members of the Christian
ministry and nearly all the professors in nearly all the colleges and seminaries of all
denominations. I hope that as I shall present to you the true Bible teaching of
"Where are the Dead?" you will see that this Blessed Book has been maligned and
misrepresented even by its friends, and that rightly understood, reasonably interpreted,
it presents the only tolerable view of our subject, the only satisfactory explanation.
"DOCTRINES
OF DEMONS"
The Apostle calls our attention to the fact that the heathen in
his day labored under the delusion of "doctrines of demons." (1 Tim. 4:1.)
We know what those doctrines were, for they are still prominent throughout heathendom.
Plato, one of the philosophers whose teachings were widely accepted at that time and which
Were set aside by the Apostle as vain philosophies, the wisdom of men as compared with the
wisdom of God, taught the theory of human immortality. (Col. 2:8.) He claimed that man
received from the gods a spark of Divine quality which could never be extinguished, and
that hence his portion must be to live on and on throughout all eternity. The Grecians
took hold of Plato's theories, and they-- being the most intelligent people of that time
aside from the Jews--spread this theory wherever their literature went. It is not
surprising, therefore, that it not only tinctured the views of the heathen but also to
some extent those of the Jews--though comparatively few, known as the Essenes. These in
accepting Plato's philosophy really ceased to be Jews in the religious sense. This
Platonic theory, starting before Christianity, was in many respects its competitor, until
gradually in various parts the Christian faith became tinctured with it.
We wish you to notice that this theory is
responsible for the world-wide opinion that a human life once begun can never be
extinguished. With this theory the people of the East supported their view of the
transmigration of souls--claiming that a human soul is separate and distinct from a human
body, and that when the latter dies the soul passes out and in due time will be born again
in another body--perhaps, again as a man, or a woman or as a dog or a donkey or an
elephant or a mouse. The labors, the privations, the difficulties of all the lower animals
are thus looked forward to by these poor people as being their own future state. No wonder
their faces, indexing their heart conditions, are woeful and sad! Others of the heathen
have beliefs nearer to those entertained by many in Christendom--that the tortures of the
life they cannot get rid of will be with fire or ice or other torments at the hands of
demons.
THE VIEWS OF CHRISTENDOM
Accepting the recognized fact that Christendom
leads the world in thought today we note that the philosophy instituted by Plato--not by
Moses, not by the Prophets of Israel, not by Jesus, not by His Apostles--has taken a firm
hold upon Christian faith, and left its terrible impress upon nearly every item thereof.
Practically all oft he larger denominations of Christendom hold to the Platonic theory,
though the majority are quite unaware of the origin of the doctrine, many of them
supposing that it is the Bible teaching--that it is supported by every writer on the Holy
Scriptures. Quite the contrary of this is true, however; and, as we shall shortly show,
the testimony of the Scriptures is radically in opposition to this theory from first to
last, and without the exception of a single writer or a single text.
As the oldest of the denominations, Catholicism
should be heard first as to its views on the subject--Where are the dead? Its answer is
that it ignores the heathen theory of the transmigration of souls, but that it holds to
the feature of Plato's philosophy which declares that the human soul is immortal--that a
human existence once having started can never cease--hence that the twenty thousand
millions of Adam's race who have died are not really dead, but more alive than ever
before, and that notwithstanding the appearance of death they have been experiencing
either joy or sorrow, pleasure or pain. In answer to our more particular inquiries it
tells us that the dead are in one of three places: (1) A very few saintly ones went to
Heaven directly at death; (2) a comparatively small number who died outside the Roman
Catholic faith, in wilful opposition thereto and hence called heretics, have since their
death been enduring a hell of torture which will be never ending; (3) the great mass-- all
others than those enumerated above--they claim go to Purgatory. Their claim is that nearly
all of the heathen go there because they were not counted worthy of the blessing of
knowledge before they died, and because on the other hand they had done nothing to merit
either the eternal torture of hell or the eternal peace of Heaven. To Purgatory they
assign practically all the members of their own Church also--including bishops,
archbishops, cardinals and popes.
Dante was one of their prominent theologians, whose
description of the Inferno gives the Roman Catholic view of Purgatory. The artist Dore,
also a good Catholic, used his remarkable skill in the illustration of Dante's Epic. We
advise you all to notice, in some public library or bookstore, this remarkable
work--Dante's Inferno, illustrated by Dore. The artist has faithfully depicted the
descriptions of the teacher, and his work would surely touch the most calloused heart with
sympathy. Every conceivable form of torture is depicted, from roasting and boiling to
freezing and mangling--horrible, terrible. No wonder our dear Catholic friends and
neighbors, as they have these pictures before their mental vision as their prospect after
death, have not only sad countenances but a terrible fear of death and thereafter.
Neither should any think that these Catholic
doctrines of the past have in any degree changed at the present time. In this very day
Catholics have tracts for their children which describe in vivid language the most
excruciating tortures awaiting those who in any sense or degree are disrespectful or
disobedient to the priests and the teachings of the Catholic Church. One of these brought
to our attention recently was published in Ireland, and described a little girl who had
done wrong and whose fate after death was to be obliged to live in a room whose floor was
red hot. In solemn language the tract exhorted other little boys and little girls to love
and serve God lest such a fate should await them. It is not imaginable that any human
being could love a God who would provide such tortures for any of His creatures.--Isa.
29:13.
It is no wonder, then, that Catholics make no
pretensions to a love for God. They fear and dread. The hope held out to these is that any
good deeds of theirs will be credited up and serve to shorten the period of their sentence
to suffering, the period of their stay in Purgatory, the period of their deliverance to
Heaven. This doctrine of life in Purgatory is the basis for the many exhortations from
Catholic pulpits and Catholic books that faithfulness be manifested by penances and
masses. A certain number of attendances at Church in the Lenten season constitutes a
penance to which is attached a blessing and the remission of so many years of purgatorial
suffering. Those who have money are exhorted to set apart a good portion of it to defray
the expenses of masses for their own soul or for those of others. The calculation seems to
be that all the penances and all the masses imaginable would still leave long years or
decades or centuries to be suffered before deliverance to Heaven. And this rule is applied
indiscriminately to rich and poor alike, high and low.
To illustrate, when Pope Pius IX died, masses
were said for the repose of his soul throughout all the Roman Catholic Churches of the
world. Likewise when Pope Leo XIII died, the same command for masses for the repose of his
soul went forth, and was executed in all Catholic Churches. This implied the belief that
these men, while the highest functionaries of that Church, were not sufficiently holy or
pure or good to be admitted to Heaven; for surely those gaining access to Heaven have no
need of masses for the repose of their souls. The expression "repose of the
soul" implies the tortures of that soul in Purgatory, and supplication and endeavor
to have God remit a measure of those sufferings and shorten the period of the
tribulations.
We are not making light of those matters. We are
merely stating them, not because they are unknown, but because they are not realized and
appreciated. All Catholics then, we believe, will assent to our declaration that their
faith is that the great mass of mankind are now in Purgatory, a comparatively small number
in eternal torment, which they call Hell, and a small number, comparatively, in Heaven. It
should be remembered, however, that on a Papal Jubilee it is the custom for the Pope to
exercise a power he claims is his, of setting free from Purgatory certain thousands of its
inmates who have not fulfilled all of their term of punishment, though it is to be
supposed that it is not his intention to admit them to Heaven insufficiently purged.
PROTESTANT CHRISTIAN VIEWS
Protestants claim to be much in advance of
Roman Catholics in respect to their religious faith. They often, we know, speak of Roman
Catholics as ignorant, superstitious and deluded. What shall we say then if we find that
the Protestant view on the question of our discourse is much more unreasonable than that
of Catholics? We at least would be obliged to say that they have no room for boasting.
Protestant creeds, almost without exception,
agree to the Platonic theory that no human being can die-- that when men seem to die they
really become more alive that same instant than they ever were before. We ask, Where,
then, do they go? They reply that they cannot tolerate the Roman Catholic view of a
Purgatory, that they have looked into the Bible sufficiently to find that there is no such
teaching in the Scriptures. They tell us, therefore, that they believe that there are just
two places for the dead, Heaven or Hell. We inquire of them, Who go to Heaven? They
answer, The saintly, the holy, the pure in heart, the Little Flock, the Elect, those who
walk in the footsteps of Jesus. We inquire respecting the rest, and hear the Protestants
(to their credit be it said) balk at the teaching of their creeds even while they affirm
them, and declare that all not begotten again of the Holy Spirit, not sanctified in
Christ, not saints, go to hell.
We inquire the kind of hell they have gone to, and
get various replies. Some assert that it is a place of literal fire and excruciating pains
at the hands of fire-proof demons, and that this will be the fate of all who enter there
to all eternity, without any hope of escape. Others, without being able to give particular
reasons, tell us that in their great wisdom they agree with all the foregoing except as to
the kind of punishment, which they conclude must be a mental anguish or suffering. But
lest we should think of them as being tender-hearted, they hasten to add that this
suffering will really be more intense, "worse" than that of the literal fire
believed in by others. The whole race, we are told, was started on the broad road for this
eternal torment by Father Adam's disobedience, and in consequence of that we are all born
in sin, shapen in iniquity. Those who ever get to Heaven will get there because of Divine
mercy and aid extended them to overcome the world, the flesh and the Adversary.
"COME, LET US REASON
TOGETHER"
In the Bible the Lord appeals to our reason,
saying, "Come, let us reason together." (Isa. 1:18.)
He does not intimate that we should reason without Him and without His Word; but He
distinctly implies that His Word should be reasoned upon, be considered by our minds.
Whoever possesses any measure of reasoning faculty must conclude that the Catholic view of
our question-- Where are the Dead?--is in some respects worse than the heathen view; that
the Protestant view of death is still worse; that none of these views seem to be God-like,
but that all of them condemn themselves as being devilish. Reasoning power on religious
subjects seems to be a scarce commodity. Many Christian people seem to understand the
invitation to reason with God to mean that He wishes them to tell Him just what are their
preferences; and that if they remain obdurate, holding to their preferences, He will
finally give in and say that their wills shall be done in Heaven and in earth.
Let none of us make this mistake. Let us on the
other hand remember the greatness of God--His Wisdom, Justice, Love and Power. Let us
remember our own insignificance and lack of knowledge. Then, in harmony with the Master's
precepts, let us become as little children, anxious to be and to do in harmony with the
Divine Plan, as God has revealed it. So doing, dear friends, each one of us is assured of
the Divine blessing--assured of a growth in grace, in knowledge, in love, toward God and
toward our fellows.
Let us begin with our text. It declares that
David is dead. Hence he is not alive in any sense. It declares that he is not in Heaven,
and we are not bound to accept either the Catholic or Protestant view that he is in hell
or eternal torment. What does the inspired Apostle Peter say respecting David's present
whereabouts? He says in our text, "His sepulchre is with us." It could be his
sepulchre only in the sense that he was still in it, that it still represented him. If he
had begun a new existence elsewhere that sepulchre in no sense of the word would be his.
We are using the Apostle's words in the very sense in which he himself used them. Saint
Peter had just quoted from the Psalms, "Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell [Hebrew, sheol; Greek, hades]." He points out
that David spake not these words concerning himself, respecting his own soul, but
respecting the soul of Christ--that Christ's soul would not be left in hell. The Apostle's
argument is that David's soul [SM26] is
still in hell, but that Christ's soul was delivered from hell--raised from the tomb, from
the state of death, on the third day after His crucifixion.
CHRIST'S SOUL DELIVERED FROM
HELL
Here, dear friends, we have a declaration sure
enough that the dead go to hell--not to Purgatory. Furthermore it is a declaration that
the Prophet David and Christ Jesus Himself went to hell--that the latter had been
delivered from hell, but that the former was still there. Had we the time it would be an
easy matter to bring evidence from the entire Scriptures proving that all who die, both
good and bad, go to hell; and that the only means by which they can be delivered from
Sheol, Hades, is through a resurrection of the dead. This Scriptural presentation not only
differs from the heathen view but differs also from the Catholic and Protestant views. And
with the ordinary idea of hell before our minds, it would seem more awful than any other
theory that both good and bad alike should go down to Sheol, to Hades.
But wait a moment, dear friends; let us not too
hastily decide that the Bible is unreasonable in its presentations. Let us not prove or
test it by human theories. The poet has truly said:
"God is His own interpreter,
And He will make it plain."
Investigation shows that our difficulty arises
from attaching a wrong meaning to these Scriptural terms Sheol and Hades (hell). The
unreasonable view of the fire-and-torment hell which we all received with so much
credulity came from the Dark Ages, not from the Bible. Dante's "Inferno" is as
different from the hell of Scripture as darkness is from sunlight. We must not carry
forward the demonology of the Dark Ages and attach it to our interpretations of the Bible.
If we do, we shall be quite confused. We should remember, too, that these lurid pictures
of the Dark Ages were painted by the very class of men who, with a devilish spirit, burned
one another at the stake or tortured one another with the rack, the thumbscrew or
other devilish inventions. We do not approve the moral character of those men, and we
should not expect their doctrinal teachings to be much superior to themselves, nor much in
harmony with Divine truth and revelation. Let us then examine hell from the Scriptural
standpoint. Let us hear what God has said.
As is well known, our Bible was not originally
written in the English language. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew and the New
Testament in Greek--ours is but a translation. Going to the Old Testament in the Hebrew we
find that it contains more than twice as many mentions of hell, Sheol, as does the English
translation. In the English the word occurs thirty-one times, in the Hebrew, sixty-six
times. How has this Hebrew word sheol been translated in our
English Bible? We answer that the thirty-one times the word hell occurs are from this word
sheol, that it occurs twice more in our common version where it
is rendered "pit," and that it occurs thirty-three times more in our common
version and is rendered "grave." Furthermore, in two of the places where it is
rendered hell in our common version, it is interpreted by the marginal reading,
"Hebrew, the grave."
The fact, dear friends, is, as every Hebrew
scholar knows, that the word sheol is never used to refer to a
place of fire or of torture. In every instance, whether used literally or figuratively, it
refers to a death state. Furthermore, as we have already stated, both good and bad are
reputed to go thither. David went to Sheol, our Lord Jesus went to Sheol, according to the
Scriptures. We might quote you from the words of the patriarch David, also from the
various other Prophets, how they all expected to go to Sheol--to the tomb, the state of
death. Not only so, but they assure us also that Christ redeemed us and the world from
Sheol. For instance, we read in the prophecy of Hosea, "I will ransom them from
Sheol: O Death, I will be thy plagues; O Sheol, I will be thy destruction."
(Hosea 13:14.) Furthermore, we have the Scriptural declaration respecting Sheol that it
contains no fire, no suffering. We read, "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it
with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in Sheol,
whither thou goest." (Eccl. 9:10.) In other words, we should be actively engaged in
doing some good according to our talents and opportunities because we are all hastening to
Sheol--to the tomb--to death, and there is no wisdom nor device nor knowledge there; we
can neither help nor hinder, do good nor do harm, when we have reached the "land of
forgetfulness." (Psa. 88:12.) Realizing this should make us all the more diligent in
the present life.
REDEMPTION FROM SHEOL
We have already seen that through the Prophet the
Lord declared that He would redeem our souls from Sheol, and that Sheol should be
destroyed. What is meant by this? We answer that Father Adam by his disobedience involved
himself and all of the race in what the Scriptures designate a "curse" or
penalty--not an eternal torment penalty, but a death penalty. Not "Roasting thou
shall roast," but"Dying thou shalt die," was the Divine statement of Adam's
penalty. Again, "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread until thou return unto
the dust from whence thou wast taken. For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou
return." It does not read, "unto eternal torture thou shalt be remanded."
God has explained the matter expressly enough, but our poor heads were befogged with the
doctrines of devils handed down from the Dark Ages, often by very good and
well-intentioned people, amongst others our parents.
Hear the Apostle's statement of the same
matter, and let us notice how closely it corroborates the Old Testament pronouncement. He
says, "As by one man's disobedience sin entered the world and death as a result of
sin; and thus death passed upon all men, because all are sinners." (Rom. 5:12.)
How plain that is! Not a word about eternal torment as the penalty for our sins inherited
from Father Adam. Quite to the contrary, it was a death penalty, a just, reasonable
penalty. God, who gave the opportunity for life eternal, had the full right, the full
power, to terminate that life when used contrary to His Divine injunction.
Had it not been for God's mercy the infidel's view
of the matter would have been true--that a man's death is the same as that of the brute
beast--that there would be no beyond, no future. But while telling us this (Eccl.
3:20), the Lord graciously informs us that He has found a Redeemer for Adam and his race.
The Scriptures point us to Jesus and the work that He accomplished on our behalf. He died,
the Just for the unjust, that He might reconcile us to God. (1 Pet. 3:18.) As we all came
under death conditions through Father Adam, so when Jesus by His death paid Adam's penalty
it was accounted as a sufficiency of price for the sins of the whole world. Thus the
Apostle declares that Jesus"gave Himself a Ransom for all" and"tasted death
for every man." (1 Tim. 2:6; Heb. 2:9.) Mark well he does not say that Jesus tasted
eternal torment for every man. Eternal torment was not the penalty. The Bible has it
right. Death is the penalty, and it is upon the whole race. But the whole race has been
redeemed, and therefore when God's due time shall arrive a blessing of resuscitation, of
awakening from death, shall come to every member of our race. It is thus that Sheol shall
be destroyed--that is, that there will be no longer a tomb or death condition; for all
will be taken out of that condition, awakened from the death sleep.
HADES TO BE DESTROYED
The equivalent of the Hebrew word sheol, as we have already stated, is the Greek word hades,
which is found in the New Testament written in the Greek. In proof of this take our
context and note the words of St. Peter that he quoted from Psalm 16:10--"Thou
wilt not leave My soul in Sheol," and in the Greek rendered it, "Thou wilt not
leave My soul in Hades." (Acts 2:31.) In a word, the Old Testament says that Jesus
went to Sheol, and that His soul was not left there, but raised from the dead; while the
New Testament declares these things of Hades. What we are saying is new to the majority of
the so-called laity, but not at all new to the educated of the clergy, who all know, if
they would admit it, that Sheol and Hades contain no thought of fire or torment or
trouble, but merely represent the state or condition of death--what we would express by
the word "tomb."
This great underworld of the dead, the tomb, Sheol,
Hades, has many cities of the dead called cemeteries. But according to the Scriptural
symbolization it is a great prison-house. In it are estimated twenty thousand millions who
have died. They are called in the Scriptures" prisoners of hope," because the
Lord has promised that ultimately the great prison-house shall be broken up and all these
prisoners shall be released, brought back to consciousness again under better conditions
than now prevail. This assurance of resurrection the Apostle tells us is "both for
the just and the unjust." Not all will have the same degree of blessing when they
come forth from the tomb in the Millennial Morning; for the Scriptures declare that some
shall come forth to the life-resurrection and others to the judgment-resurrection--to be
subject to disciplines, corrections, that if rightly received will help them up, up, out
of their degradation and back to a condition in which God will be pleased to permit them
to live everlastingly.--Zech. 9:12; 1 Peter 3:18.
The Scriptures are very clear in declaring that all
this hope of a resurrection is based upon the fact that Christ died for the sins of the
world, and that without His death there could be no resurrection--the prisoners would all
remain in the great prison-house. Indeed, they would not be said to be in a prison-house
at all were it not fort he Divine provision for their re-awakening. Hearken to the
Prophet telling of this coming blessing upon the prisoners. Speaking of Christ and His
work during the Millennial Age, he declares that the Lord shall say to the prisoners,
"Go forth!" to them that are in darkness, "Show yourselves!" (Isa.
49:9.) Their coming forth will be that they may manifest their real sentiments either for
righteousness or for unrighteousness, when they will have a full, complete opportunity for
choice. Those who choose righteousness will thereby be choosing eternal life, according to
God's provision, and they that will choose unrighteousness will be choosing the Second
Death, extinction, from which there will be no hope of recovery ever. "Christ dieth
no more." (Rom. 6:9)-- there will be no resurrection from the Second Death.
All are redeemed from the first or Adamic death
because Christ took Adam's place and bought the whole race, with a view to giving each
member of the race an individual opportunity for returning to God's favor. Mark again the
Prophet's declaration. (Isa. 61:1.) There Christ's mission is declared to be
to"bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening
of the prison to them that are bound."
How beautiful the picture! Twenty thousand millions
of prisoners, slaves of sin! The great Deliverer has provided their ransom by going into
death on their behalf. Because of His faithfulness He was rewarded with life on a still
higher plane, and has thus become the Author of salvation to all them that will obey Him.
(Heb. 5:9.) A few have the hearing ears in the present time, and theirs is the great
privilege of hearing the Redeemer's voice and becoming His faithful Bride by suffering
with Him for righteousness' sake, that they may in the Millennial period, with their Lord
and Master, pour out upon the whole human creation the Divine blessing of forgiveness,
restitution, reconciliation. Notice further that Jesus applied this same figure to
Himself, quoting this very passage in the synagogue at Nazareth. We are all witnesses that
He did not open prison-doors of any kind at His First Advent, except as figuratively, he,
through the awakening of Lazarus and a few others, showed forth His coming glory and His
coming work, which will bless all. Hearken also to His words in his final message to the
Church, "I am He that liveth, and was dead, and, behold, I am alive forevermore; and
have the keys of death and of Hades"--the grave, the tomb. (Rev. 1:18.) Ah, yes, the
keys are in good hands! They are rightfully His who has bought all the prisoners. In due
time He will use the key and bring all forth from the great prison-house, that under the
blessed conditions of His Kingdom they may all come to a knowledge of the Truth and, if
they will, by obedience, come back into harmony with God and possess eternal life--or,
acting otherwise, die the Second Death.
HELL IN THE REVISED VERSION
BIBLE
There is an excuse for the rendering of the words
Sheol and Hades by the English word hell. In old English literature we find that the words
hell, pit and grave were used interchangeably; and that while grave and pit have
maintained their original significance, the word hell has gradually changed, until now by
that word is generally understood a place of torment. In old English a farmer writing to
his friend says, "I intend to hell my house this fall, and we have already helled 150
bushels of potatoes." What does he mean? Simple and plain enough! He means that he is
about to thatch his house with straw, covering it over, burying it after the old style
almost down to the ground. He means that he has pitted or put away for winter and spring
use the potatoes, which will keep better thus than otherwise. So, then, the translators of
our Bible are not to be blamed for the indiscriminate translation referred to.
But how about the Revised Version? says one.
Ah! we answer, the revisers were educated men, who knew well the significance of hell,
Hades--who knew that in no sense of the word did they refer to a place of torment, but
that they do signify the death state. How then did they translate these words Sheol and
Hades? We reply that they were too honest to translate them with the word hell, but not
honest enough to give the English reader the truth on the subject; and hence they gave no
translation at all, but merely introduced the Hebrew word sheol
in the Old Testament and the Greek word hades in the New
Testament without translating them. The public, thoroughly deluded on the subject, at once
declared that their course was one of leniency, and that Sheol and Hades were just as hot
as when translated hell. The fact is, dear friends, as we have already stated, that there
is no fire connected with either of these words in any proper interpretation of them.
"ALL THAT ARE IN THE
GRAVES"
We have set before you the Scriptural presentation
on this subject. Where are the dead? It may be disappointing to some of your minds as you
think of the saintly ones of your friends and relatives. But they surely have not been
very many. On the contrary, the great mass of our friends and those who have died have
given no evidence of being spirit-begotten, pure in heart, saintly. Hence if there be a
measure of disappointment on the one hand there is a corresponding measure of relief on
the other. However, no matter what our friends may have been, I hope you and I are amongst
those who desire to know the Truth and to whom the Lord has promised that they shall know
the Truth and the Truth shall make them free. Let us be free then from these awful dogmas
of the past, free to love God, free to believe His Word, free to trust in and understand
how Jesus tasted death for every man, free to believe that He who redeemed will restore,
free to believe that the resurrection of the dead is the salvation which God has provided,
and that "in death there is no remembrance of Thee," as the Prophet has
declared--Psa. 6:5.
We remind you again of our dear Redeemer's words,
speaking of the resurrection. He not only said, "I am the resurrection and the
life," but He also declared, "The hour is coming in the which all that are in
their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of Man and shall come forth." (John
11:25; 5:28.) Those of you who are Christians will not doubt the Redeemer knew where are
the dead. And in this Scripture which we have just quoted it distinctly says that they are
in their graves, not in Purgatory, not in a hell of torment, not in Heaven; they are in
the tomb, in the death state, and from the death state He will call them forth in the
Resurrection Morning. What more could we ask than this positive statement? Who dares to
contradict Him, who spake as never man spake? What theologian would have the temerity?
Note how complete is the harmony between His statement and that of our text. St. Peter,
one of the chiefest Apostles, declares that David was still in his sepulchre, had not
ascended into Heaven; Jesus Himself declares, "No man hath ascended into
Heaven," and again, "All who are in their graves shall come forth." The
next verse tells that in the coming forth there shall be two classes, the one perfect in
life, glory, honor and immortality; the other still imperfect and to receive
chastisements, judgments, disciplines, with a view to their ultimately attaining a full
resurrection out of sin-and-death conditions if they will. With these clearer thoughts on
this important subject, dear friends, I trust that you and myself will more and more seek
to make our calling and election sure, that we may have a blessed part in the First
Resurrection, of which it is declared"Blessed and holy are all they that have part in
the First Resurrection; on such the Second Death hath no power; but they shall be kings
and priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years."--Rev.
20:6.
