| Highlights of Dawn | June 1953 |
Death Itself Will Die
“There shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.” —Revelation 21:4
NO NORMAL person wants to die. Man has ever been on the search for the “fountain of youth” and the “elixir of life.” Increased knowledge in the field of medical science has resulted in a very substantial and encouraging increase in the average length of life, raising it within the last half century from thirty-five to nearly seventy years. Viewed in its proper light, this may be accepted as one of the evidences that a new age is dawning, even that golden age of prophecy so eloquently foretold by God’s holy prophets.
We know, of course, that the secret of life is held in divine control; but it is significant, we think, that as the time nears for life to be offered to the people through the agencies of Christ’s kingdom, man is having his attention directed along this line, and is making a desperate effort to obtain that which only the Lord can give.
It seems that some scientists are expecting really sensational developments with human life. Under the title, “You May Live Forever,” Mr. William Lawrence, writing in Look magazine, says:
“This is not a vague science-fiction forecast for the distant future. The time when this can become a reality is not a thousand years from now, or a hundred years from today, or even just a promise for the world of tomorrow. The time has already come. It is here now. Everyone now living can benefit by the momentous discoveries of recent years in the hitherto forbidden realms of living matter.”
This is a very dogmatic statement, but upon reading through Mr. Lawrence’s article we discover that it is predicated on the very foundationless “hope” that sometime in the future scientists will actually discover the secret of life, and that the living generation of today can benefit from this by now arranging to have a bit of body tissue preserved which in that future time can be used by the scientists to reproduce them by what Mr. Lawrence very mistakenly refers to as a “resurrection.”
It has been discovered, writes Mr. Lawrence, that the organism of the body is constructed by what some of the scientists call a “master sculptor,” which remains in the body after birth and functions as a “repair man” to replace burned up tissue, heal wounds, etc.. This “repair man” accomplishes a complete rebuilding of body tissue every seven years, with the exception of brain and nerve center tissues.
But, Mr. Lawrence explains, this “repair man” gets tired after a while, and is no longer able to function efficiently. This means that burned up tissues are not properly replaced, so we grow old and die. The unrealistic theory of the scientists for which Mr. Lawrence reports is that this “repair man” can be preserved and later be put to work again as a “master sculptor” to make a new body just like the one we now possess, and this, it is claimed will be a “resurrection” of the original person.
Mr. Lawrence says:
“Once man learns how to put the master sculptor to work, men and women will possess the means for reversing the processes of life, to become embryos once more and thus start life all over again in a second birth that can be followed by a third, a fourth, indeed any number of births, successive or simultaneous, or both.”
That word “simultaneous” is certainly intriguing in this connection. “So and so should have been twins” is a remark sometimes made concerning those whose work is of special value to the world. If Mr. Lawrence’s prediction were to come true this would be possible. Many of us wish at times that we could see ourselves as others see us. That, too, will be possible, according to Mr. Lawrence’s prediction.
On the other hand, the thought of this is rather frightening, for while Mr. Lawrence speaks of “resurrecting” the Einsteins, the Churchills, and the Eisenhowers, or perhaps producing them in duplicate, or even in triplicate, the same could be true of the Hitlers, the Neros, and the Al Capones. Supposing that this newest dream of the scientists (and that is all it is) should come true, it seems to us that in such an event they will have succeeded in presenting mankind with something more horrible and more dangerous than atom bombs.
The fact is that the scientists do not yet know how to put the “master sculptor” to work. This, they admit, is still “one of nature’s greatest secrets,” which they do not know “and are still very far from knowing.” This means that Mr. Lawrence’s predictions are based upon exactly nothing so far as anything really tangible is concerned.
But even if they should come true, even if a hundred years from now the scientists should discover how to produce a new body which would be the exact duplicate of one that died, would the brain in that body have recorded on it the sum total of thoughts which made up the character of the original man?
Certainly not! The master sculptor which builds the original organism that begins conscious life at birth produces a brain in that body which is without thoughts—a blank, as it were. It is ready to begin recording as soon as the body is animated by the breath of life, but the recording is not done by the master sculptor. It is done, rather, by the nerve centers of the body, functioning through the five senses of seeing, feeling, hearing, smelling, and tasting.
These transmit to the brain that which goes on in the world around, and are there blended into thoughts and recorded. This recording we call memory. Barring deterioration of the “record,” any part of it can be “played back” at will. In thus “calling things to mind,” the individual experiences emotions of joy or of sorrow, depending upon what particular scene or experience of life he recalls. And, if he wishes, he can “play back” the “record” so that others can know what it contains. This is done largely through the medium of speech, although thoughts are often expressed through looks or acts.
It is this “recording,” produced through all the years of a person’s life, which we call character. It is this that governs the real personality. Just as the electrical equipment which transfers music to a record will accentuate the high tones or the low, depending on how the tone controls are adjusted, so the exact nature of the character of an individual which is formed throughout the years depends on how the “controls” function, and also, of course, on the nature of the experiences available for “recording.” This latter we call environment.
So it is that while John Smith throughout his life of seventy years may have been given ten different bodies by his “repair man,” there is only the one John Smith. And this John Smith has continued to develop. His brain, a blank “record” at birth, has limitless capacity, and in all the seventy years the recording mechanism has been working only an infinitesimally small segment of the “blank” has been utilized.
Nevertheless, the personality of John Smith is there—John Smith with his knowledge of friends, his joys, his sorrows, his loves, and his hates, in proportions dependent upon his environment and how he handled his “controls.” Suppose that a century after he died it would be possible to produce an exact duplicate of the body which John Smith originally used. Would this be John Smith? Would the brain of this body contain the “recording” which really was John Smith?
Obviously not, for as we have seen, the scientists’ so-called “master sculptor,” even under nature’s own favorable conditions, succeeded originally in constructing merely a “blank” so far as the brain was concerned. The real John Smith was built later, and by the sum total of life’s experiences. So unless the scientists can find a way to duplicate those experiences exactly as they happened throughout the seventy years when John Smith was alive, they will not have resurrected John Smith at all.
Small comfort this is, then, to offset the sorrows of death. For of what value could it be to anyone today to know that a century later another body just like his will be produced if that body will not contain his memory? If such a duplicate body could be produced, it would be surrounded by circumstances entirely different from those which constituted the drama of life recorded by the original, so it would develop into an entirely different person, while the original character would remain asleep in death.
Anyway, the scientists are trying to cope with man’s most distressing problem, and for this we give them credit. There is nothing more universal in human experience than death. It is a ghastly and dreaded monster which stalks up and down on every continent and every isle of the sea, striking down its victims young and old, regardless of race or color. Neither the rich nor the poor are safe from attack, for this dreaded enemy of the human race is no respecter of persons.
Everybody knows that one day death will strike, yet no one is ever fully prepared for it, and when a loved one is snatched away into the “land of the enemy” relatives and friends are left stunned and heartbroken. In their sorrow human beings have desperately endeavored to discover some magic way of convincing themselves that death is not what it seems to be. In reaching out for some comforting philosophy to offset their sorrow, they have fallen easy prey to fanciful theories which are as unrealistic as they are false.
Fundamental to all these fanciful notions is that grossest of all lies ever to fall on human ears, the statement made to mother Eve in the Garden of Eden: “Ye shall not surely die.” (Gen. 3:4) These false words were uttered by the “serpent,” which, impersonating the devil, deceived Eve into believing that death would not result—as God himself had declared to Adam it would—from disobedience to divine law.—Gen. 2:17
As a result of sin, and in keeping with the warning which the Creator gave to our first parents, mankind has continued to die, despite Satan’s declaration to the contrary. However, that first lie did not lose its power to deceive, for out of it has arisen the claim that after all, death is not what it seems to be. Perhaps the boldest statement of this further deception is contained in the assertion, “There is no death.”
There are many variations of this false viewpoint, but common to all is the theory that the fleshly, or corporeal, body is merely an outward shell for the real person, and that when this shell is no longer needed it goes into decay, or “dies,” freeing the real personality to enjoy existence under conditions much more favorable than when hampered by a body of flesh.
Those professing to base their belief on the Bible call the real personality of man a soul—an immortal, death-proof soul. The claim is that righteous souls go to a place of happiness when the body dies, but unrighteous souls, must suffer conscious torment throughout eternity. Heathen religions have various other concepts.
Another aspect of the falsehood is that death is not in reality an enemy but a friend, in that it is an escape from the hampering bondage of the flesh, and an entrance into another world. The vast majority of people have found it pleasant to accept this viewpoint, for doubtless it does help somewhat to cushion the blow when death strikes.
But the small measure of comfort derived from the unrealistic theory that “there is no death” is often more than offset by the dreadful realization that those who have passed through this portal experience may not have been good enough to enter into a better, happier life, and consequently are now suffering some form of torture. Thousands have been driven to distraction by the fear that this may be the lot of their beloved dead.
Death an Enemy
When we face reality we know that death is an enemy. Every ache and pain of an aging, dying body testifies to this. The rivers of tears which daily flow, as one hundred thousand human beings die every twenty-four hours, are heartbreaking evidence that death is no friend. And to this the Bible agrees, for in one of its most consoling promises to the suffering and dying it declares, “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.”—I Cor. 15:26
The Prophet Jeremiah, addressing mothers in Israel who had lost their children in death, wrote, “Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears: for thy work shall be rewarded, saith the Lord; and they shall come again from the land of the enemy. And there is hope in thine end, saith the Lord, that thy children shall come again to their own border.”—Jer. 31:16,17
Yes, according to the Bible, death is an enemy, a loathsome, dreaded enemy, and those who go into death are said to be in the “land of the enemy.” However, as the Lord declares, they shall “come again to their own border,” meaning that they will return from the “land of the enemy,” and will re-cross the border into the land of the living.
This is the great hope of life set forth in the holy Scriptures. The word most generally used in the New Testament to describe this hope is “resurrection.” When used in the Bible, it refers to an actual awakening from death of those who have been struck down by the great Enemy—not the raising up merely of a body similar to the one that died, but the restoration of the original personality, memory, character, and all.
The “Re” in God’s Plan
While the Bible asserts that death is an enemy which the Lord has permitted to rule over men because of sin, it also reveals that the Creator has made a provision of life which is yet to give all an opportunity to escape the penalty of death, that penalty which Paul describes as the wages of sin. This provision of life is a gift from God, the Creator. Paul gives us the complete thought, saying, “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”—Rom. 6:23
This gift of life is a “re”-vived life, made possible through God’s plan of “re”-demption. Jesus became the “Re”-deemer of mankind from death by taking the sinner’s place in death. Isaiah wrote concerning him that he “poured out his soul unto death,” that he “made his soul an offering for sin.”—Isa. 53:10,11
Every promise of God pertaining to everlasting life has in it the thought of “re”-vival, or restoration of life. Jesus’ redemptive work is described as a “ransom.” Paul wrote that “the man Christ Jesus” “gave himself a ransom for all.” (I Tim. 2:5,6) All mankind, therefore, are the ransomed ones. Isaiah designates them to be “the ransomed of the Lord,” and adds that they shall “re”-turn, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.”—Isa. 35:10
The Prophet David, speaking of the original sentence of death which fell upon the human race because of sin, said concerning God, “Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, ‘Re’-turn ye children of men.”—Ps. 90:3
Memories to Be Restored
One of the best known presentations of the subject of the resurrection is found in the 15th chapter of I Corinthians. Here the Apostle Paul likens our going down into death as a “sowing,” and explains, “Thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or some other grain: but God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body.”—vss. 37,38
The exact chemical elements which make up a body at the time of death are not the important consideration in connection with the hope of resurrection. As the scientists explain, nature’s “repair man” gives us a new body every seven years in any event, yet we, as personalities—the “it” referred to by Paul—remain constant, changing only in the sense of growing in knowledge and experience.
And this is the “it” which is to be restored in the resurrection promised throughout the Word of God. But how can that be, some may ask, unless our real personalities are something separate from the body, something which cannot die? If the real man is simply the sum total of that which, through the years, has been recorded upon the cells of our brains, are not these personalities forever destroyed when the brain deteriorates and returns to dust?
From the human standpoint this would be true. It has been proved that in the cases of those brought back to life a few seconds after the heart stops beating, if the revival of life is delayed more than a few seconds, the brain cells begin to deteriorate, and then, even if the life is saved, the patient is no longer mentally normal. Certainly, then, when death is of sufficient duration to permit the brain to go into complete decay, everything recorded thereon is lost—lost, that is, so far as human knowledge and ability are concerned.
But the hope of the resurrection is based upon the ability of divine power to create a new brain and impress upon it everything which was recorded on the original one. This memory, which in reality is the man himself, is the “bare” grain that is sown in death, and which will be restored in the resurrection. But in the meantime, where is it? It is preserved in God’s memory. To grasp this thought we need to remind ourselves of the unlimited capabilities of God, the Creator of the universe, and the superhuman agencies he can employ.
We know that God is capable of accomplishing his purposes in a far more orderly and efficient manner than do his human creatures. However, we might allow our minds to imagine his having some sort of filing system containing complete information concerning every thought that ever flitted through the minds of all the countless millions who have died—an individual case history, as it were, of every one of his human creatures.
But actually, we know that God must have a much better way than this to keep a record of every “bare grain” that is sown in death. David tells us that God has numbered the stars and “calleth them all by names.” (Ps. 147:4) Astronomers tell us that there is practically no end to God’s great universe of worlds. There are, even within our abilities to discern, countless billions of heavenly bodies, yet the Creator has given them all names, and remembers them by their names. In view of this, David added, “Great is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is infinite.”—Ps. 147:5
Need we be concerned as to whether or not a God with such a memory and with such infinite power and wisdom will forget what we recorded in our memories during the few short years of our lives? It need not matter to us how he does it, or what agencies he uses. Of this we can be sure, the Creator who designed a brain capable of receiving impressions and coordinating them into thoughts, which in turn can be and are translated into words and actions, is certainly able to reproduce that brain and transmit to it that which was recorded in the original.
Thinking of the brain as a record, we have a good illustration which might help us. In the process of sound recording, and later of duplicating what is recorded so that thousands of copies become available for the enjoyment of the public, the original recording is entirely lost, or destroyed. The beautiful song however, which was impressed upon the original record is transferred to others. This “bare grain” is not lost, although the “organism” which first held it no longer exists.
If man can do this with a song, is it hard to believe that the Creator of all things can and will be able to reproduce the millions of memories lost in death? It should not be! After all, that indefinable principle that the scientists call the “master sculptor,” which supervises the building of the infant child before birth and becomes nature’s “repair man” after birth, was designed and created by God. This is his secret of life, and we may be sure that he knows how to restore life.
Despite all the brilliant achievements of the scientists they admit that they are far—very far—from knowing the secret of life; but God has always known it, and is only waiting his own due time to fulfill his promise to restore the lives of his human creatures who were sentenced to death because of sin, and for whom he provided redemption through Christ.
A scientist can make a synthetic grain of wheat, and put every chemical element in it which he finds in a real grain of wheat, but when he plants it in the ground it doesn’t grow. But God’s wheat grows. So the “bare grains” which are us, when sown in death, will also “grow,” and will be given a body in keeping with God’s design—“To every seed his own body,” Paul wrote.—I Cor. 15:38
Throughout this remarkable chapter Paul calls special attention to the fact that there are two classes in the resurrection, one heavenly and one earthly. “As is the earthy,” in their aims and ambitions, he writes, “such are they also that are earthy” in the resurrection; “and as is the heavenly”—those now who are heavenly, or spiritually minded—“such are they also that are heavenly” in the resurrection.—I Cor. 15:48
Those who come forth in the resurrection as spirit or heavenly beings will be those who are prepared for it by heeding Paul’s admonition to set their “affections on things above.” (Col. 3:1) Throughout life’s experiences they “tune” their minds to receive as far as possible the spiritual impulses, so their characters are fittingly formed to be given a heavenly body in the resurrection.
But there have not been many of these throughout the age, not many, that is, in comparison with the vast majority who have preferred the good things of the earth, and whose memory chambers have been filled with earthly thoughts. These have not necessarily been sinful, for after all God created man to live on the earth. The earth is man’s home, specially prepared for him, and God has made provision to restore these countless millions to life on the earth, and to show them the way to live forever.
Yes, all the great and the good of earth will be restored. Their experiences and their training have not been lost. In God’s great wisdom this has, in reality, been part of the creative process. His “master sculptor” formed the organism, but in the vast “womb” of human experience their characters were developed.
The influences surrounding mankind throughout the reign of sin and death have been predominantly evil. With many the power to resist has been so weak that they have developed bad characters, and none have been able to resist sin altogether. The Creator has permitted evil to reign so that every member of the race has been exposed to influences and circumstances contrary to divine righteousness. Then, for a thousand years, these same personalities will be in contact with good, and surrounded by the wholesome influences of the kingdom of Christ.
Thus they will be prepared to decide intelligently whether or not they wish to serve the Lord and live forever, or whether to disobey God and die. Through the experience feature of God’s creative design man will thus remain a free moral agent, yet by actual experience will have learned the tragic results of sin and the great desirability of righteousness.
And those who then choose the right will live forever, not in heaven but on earth, and as human beings. The exception to this will be those who, in this life, qualified for the heavenly reward, and who, throughout the thousand years of the kingdom work of restoration, will be associated with Christ, the King and Savior of the people.
But the crude methods of assuring everlasting life suggested by the scientists will not be needed. The Creator withdrew his favor from our first parents and banished them from the Garden of Eden to prevent them from continuing to partake of the life-giving trees he had provided there and thus living forever. This suggests that when the time comes only two things will be needed in order for human beings to continue living forever. One is proper, life-giving food which will be provided through kingdom agencies, and the other, the sunshine of God’s favor.
David wrote, “In his favor is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.” (Ps. 30:5) God’s withdrawal of his favor resulted in the long nighttime of suffering and death. But in the morning of the new day, ushered in by the rising of the “Sun of Righteousness,” divine favor will be restored to all who, when given a full opportunity, accept the provisions of God’s grace through Christ, and obey the laws of his kingdom.
Then they will not need to grow feeble and die. Their “repair men” will remain alert and active to keep building up burned out tissues—not partially so, but completely—thus preventing “old age,” sickness, and death. It will be then that the blessed promise of our text will be fulfilled—“There shall be no more death.” It will be then that death itself shall die.