Dictionaries :: Concerning Redemption, Eschatology

Concerning Redemption, Eschatology: Death, and the State of the Soul after Death

a. The different forms of expression by which death is described in the Scriptures.

Departure out of this world.

2Ti 4:6

Going the way of all the earth.

Jos 23:14

Gathered to one's fathers.

Jdg 2:10

Gathered to one's people.

Deu 32:50

Dissolving the earthly house of this tabernacle.

2Cr 5:1

Returning to the dust.

Ecc 12:7

Sleep.

Jhn 11:11

Giving up the ghost.

Act 5:10

Absent from the body and present with the Lord.

2Cr 5:8

Sleeping in Jesus.

1Th 4:14; Ecc 12:7

b. The relation of death to sin.

The entire penalty of the law, including all the spiritual, physical, and eternal penal consequences of sin, is called death in the Scripture.

Gen 2:17; Rom 5:12.

This included natural death.

Rom 5:13,14.

When Christ bore the penalty of the law, it was necessary for Him to die.

Hbr 9:22

c. Why do the justified die?

It is made necessary from the present constitution of the body, while it is to both body and soul the gateway of heaven. The sting and fear of death are taken away.

1Cr 15:55-57; Hbr 2:15.

They die "in the Lord"

(Rev 14:13),

and shall at last be completely delivered from its power.

1Cr 15:26

d. Immateriality of the soul. Its continual existence after death.

The entire range of human experience fails to make us acquainted with a single instance of the annihilation of matter. Material "bodies", or chemically compounded, constantly come into existence and in turn pass away, yet never through annihilation but simply from the dissolution of that relation which these parts had temporarily sustained to each other. Spirit, however, is essentially simple and single, and therefore incapable of that dissolution of parts to which material bodies are subject. We infer, therefore, that spirits are immortal, since they cannot be subject to that only form of death of which we have any knowledge.

e. Argument derived from its imperfect development in this world.

In every department of organized life every individual creature, in its normal state, tends to grow toward condition of complete development, which is the perfection of its kind. Every human being, however, is conscious that in this life he never attains that completeness which the Creator contemplated in the ideal of His type. He has faculties undeveloped, capacities unfulfilled, natural desires unsatisfied. He knows that he was designed to be much more than he is and to fill a much higher sphere.

f. Argument derived from the distributive justice of God.

It is a judgment of reason, and a fundamental Bible doctrine that moral good is associated with happiness, and moral evil with misery, by the unchangeable nature and purpose of God. But history establishes the fact that this life is not a state of retribution, here wickedness is often associated with prosperity, moral excellence with sorrow. We hence conclude that there is a future state where everything inconsistent with the justice of God shall be adjusted.

See Psa 73.

g. Conscience points to a future state.

Conscience is the voice of God in the soul, witnessing to our sinfulness, God's essential justice. The characteristic testimony of the human conscience has always been in accordance with the word of God, that, "after death comes the judgment."

h. Confirmed by the general consent of mankind.

This has been the universal faith of all men, of all nations, and in all ages. Universal consent, like every universal effect, must be referred to an equally universal cause, and this consent, uniform among men differing in every other possible respect, can be referred to no common origin other than the constitution of man's common nature, which is the testimony of his Maker.

i. The Old Testament teaches the same distinction between body and soul that is taught in the New Testament.

Gen 1:26,27; 2:7; Ecc 12:7

j. Our Saviour's argument.

Luk 20:37,38

k. Old Testament passages implying a state of blessedness after death.

Num 23:10; Job 19:26,27; Psa 16:9-11; 17:15; 49:14,15; 73:24-26; Isa 25:8; 26:19; Dan 12:2,3,13; Hsa 13:14

l. Teaching of the New Testament.

Luk 23:43; 2Cr 5:6-8; Phl 1:23,24; Luk 16:23,24; Jud 1:5-7