| Highlights of DAWN | July 1978 |
Death Shall Be Destroyed
“Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” —I Corinthians 15:54,55
EVER since that first fatal tragedy took place, when Cain slew his own brother Abel, the great enemy Death has brought unending sorrow to the entire human race. Every day of the year some 150,000 human beings succumb to the ravages of sin-induced disease and go down to the grave; every day some 150,000 grieving families mourn the passing of their loved ones; and daily an even larger number are born into this world, eventually to go down into death as did those who preceded them.
The whereabouts, the condition, and the ultimate lot of these billions who have died over the ages has engrossed the mind of man since his advent on this earth. Proponents of the great religions and the heathen peoples alike have long considered the subject and offered various conclusions, if not solutions. Wise men and philosophers down through the ages have filled innumerable books with their thoughts and opinions. Even Job, who could say of God, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust him,” asked the question that is so much on the hearts of all, “If a man die, shall he live again?”—Job 13:15; 14:14
In most of the religions of the world some sort of immortality is implied, if not specifically expressed. Hinduism, for example, teaches the existence of a universal soul, or being, to which individual souls will be united after maya (time and space] is conquered. The established Christian religions, both Protestant and Catholic, as well as Islam, teach that after death the “souls” of the faithful will pass to a heavenly existence, while the unfaithful will be consigned to a “hell” of more or less suffering, for a greater or lesser period of time. The Indians of North America spoke of their dead as going to the happy hunting grounds. The truth is that all mankind instinctively recoils at the thought of extinction that is implicit in the fact of death.
The reason for this state of mind is not difficult to find. It is not “natural” for man to die; every fiber of man’s being rebels at the thought of death. For man was not created to die, but to live. Had he been obedient to the righteous laws of his Creator, he would have lived on this wonderful Planet Earth forever. The reason man dies is that Father Adam disobeyed and was condemned to death and took the entire human race down into death with him. The Apostle Paul confirms this point, stating plainly that “in Adam all die.”—Gen. 3:17-19; I Cor. 15:22
And so it has been. But because it is truly natural for man to desire to cling to life, there have arisen over the ages the many different concepts of “immortality” to which dying man, in desperation, turns longingly for hope.
In the past it has generally been the religionists who have promoted the various concepts of life after death and of the immortality of the soul. In recent years, however, we find physicians, psychologists, psychiatrists, and others exploring the subject, some of whom believe they have found evidence that something in man continues to live beyond the death of the body. The conclusion advanced in most of these cases is that man does not really die at all. And this, of course, is just what all wish to believe, including the investigators.
The deep and widespread interest that exists in this subject is indicated in the popularity of a book written in 1975 by Dr. Raymond Moody, Jr., under the title “Life After Life,” which has already sold more than a million copies. Noted psychiatrist Dr. Elizabeth Kübler-Ross is also in the forefront of the present effort to prove that there is indeed life after death, citing the supposed “return from death” of a number of medical patients.
“New Evidence of Life After Death” heads up an article in another publication. The “evidence” is based on the study of some fifty people who had had a “close brush with death,” according to a report in The National Enquirer. The results of the study were considered of sufficient interest to be published in the journal of the Florida Medical Association. “A California study has produced surprisingly similar results,” the article stated. “Twenty-one per cent of … California patients surveyed reported they, too, had moved out of their bodies or to another world.” Some said they had seen relatives or friends, and others stated they had been “sent back” because their time had not come.
The doctrine of the immortality of the soul is not new. It is of ancient origin, possesses many shades of meaning, and is widely accepted. As long ago as the 5th century B.C. the Greek philosopher Plato defined his understanding of the destiny of the soul in several of his dialogues. The ancient sages of Tibet described man’s consciousness as passing through many varied and fanciful experiences while awaiting reincarnation. Baruch Spinoza, Dutch philosopher of the 17th century, said, “We feel and experience ourselves to be immortal.” His particular form of immortality was belief that all existence is embraced in one substance—God (or Nature). Victor Hugo, French poet, novelist, and dramatist, stated: “I feel immortality within myself. The nearer I approach to the end the more plainly I hear around me the immortal symphonies of the world to come.”
Contemporary writer Otto Wolfgang sums it up by saying: “Man has pondered over the meaning of life and death since prehistoric days, from the unlit cave to the palatial desks of contemporary philosophers and mystics. The preponderant belief is that man does not die, that his soul is immortal and will live on in some form and manner.”
Wolfgang rightly concludes: “Of course, science can never really prove immortality. It can never be found in a test tube or a computer, nor deduced in the limited calculations of the mundane mind.” Robert M. Herhold, a Lutheran pastor at San Bruno, California, goes along with this assessment: “Life after death is, by definition, beyond the range of scientific research,” he states.
Other modern investigators do not agree. “Immortalists Believe They Can Conquer Death,” says a headline in The Sunday Olympian (January 29, 1978). “When the history of this century is written,” says A. Stuart Otto, of San Marcos, California, “the achievement that will stand head and shoulders above the rest will not be the landing on the moon, the splitting of the atom or the emergence of the computer, marvelous as those things are, but the conquest of death.” The article goes on to say that Otto is chairman of the Committee for Elimination of Death, an association of scientists, doctors, philosophers, metaphysicians, and theologians who believe “that physical death can and should be conquered.” Otto says, “I think we are at a point now that is comparable to where we were with regard to the conquest of space before World War II.”
This movement takes its name from a book written in 1969 by Alan Harrington, “The Immortalist,” which states categorically that “death is an imposition on the human race, and no longer acceptable.” We are told the movement is growing. Indeed, a course called “Towards Physical Immortality” is now being conducted by author F. M. Estandiary at the New School for Social Research in New York City.
In 1977 Dr. Moody, author of the aforementioned best-seller, “Life After Life,” brought out another book, “Reflections on Life After Life.” This was as a result of having subsequently interviewed many more people who had supposedly died and who had (also supposedly) returned to life, with detailed descriptions of their experiences in their “life after life.”
In a review of Dr. Moody’s latest book in The Reader’s Digest (July, 1977), the writer carefully describes the subjects as having been “clinically” dead, or as having come “very close to death.” Elsewhere in the article we find the expression “a typical near-death” experience and the words “death” and “died” enclosed in qualifying quotation marks. In other words, the article carefully avoids stating that the subjects involved in these experiences had actually and provably died, as in truth they hadn’t.
An examination of the conclusions put forward by these various investigators gives rise to a number of questions. Whence comes life? What is the soul? Is it immortal? What is death? If death is truly real, is there any hope of life beyond death? Those who have faith in God as the wise and loving Creator of man and of the entire universe will turn trustingly to his Word, the Bible, and there find comforting and mind-satisfying answers.
In the first place, the Scriptures inform us that God is the Giver of life. On numerous occasions Jesus referred to the Creator as his Father, and he instructed his followers likewise to call God their Father. (Luke 11:2) The word “father” implies life-giver. And it was God himself who gave life to man. When man was created in the Garden of Eden, God “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.”—Gen. 2:7
God could do this because he possesses inherent life. Jesus said, “The Father hath life in himself.” (John 5:26) Indeed, the Apostle Paul tells us he is the source of all life. He said, “God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; neither is worshiped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things.”—Acts 17:24,25
Just what is a soul? When asked this question, many will reply that it is an indefinite, indescribable, undying something that separates from the physical body when the body dies, and thus the real individual does not die but continues to live. This is not in accord with what the Bible describes as a soul, as found in the account of man’s creation recorded in Genesis 2:7. There we read, “Arid 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.” The English word “soul” is translated from the Hebrew word nephesh, which Professor Strong defines as “a breathing creature.” Thus we have the Bible assertion, not that man possesses a soul, but rather that man is a soul, or being, as this passage is properly rendered in the Revised Standard Version.
If the soul was a certain intangible entity within the human body, as many erroneously believe, we would find it doing some very strange things, according to the Bible. We would find this nebulous something pronouncing a blessing (Gen. 27:4); eating a sacrifice (Lev. 7:18); possessing the sense of touch (Lev. 7:21); having the power to hear, to sin, to swear (Lev. 5:1-4), to loath (Num. 21:5), to lust (Deut. 12:15), and to long after (Deut. 12:20). But when we comprehend that the soul, according to the Bible, is a sentient being, then all these statements become reasonable. For a human soul, or human being, can indeed bless, eat, hear, touch, long after, swear, and sin.
According to the dictionary, the meaning of the word immortal is “not subject to death; living forever; deathless.” Is the soul immortal, or deathless? Regardless of what one may suppose the soul to be, the Scriptures tell us that it is not immortal, but rather that it is subject to death. The Prophet Ezekiel wrote, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” (Ezek. 18:4) But since we have just seen that the human soul is simply a human being, the prophet is really saying, “The man that sinneth, he shall die.”
This is borne out in the context which follows, where the prophet explains, “But if a man be just, and do that which is lawful and right, … he shall surely live.” (Ezek. 18:5,9) Here the prophet is clearly contrasting the destiny of the soul (or the man) who sins with that of the soul (or the man) who is just. The one dies, the other lives. Rotherham, one of the most careful translators of the Bible, uses the word “person” in place of the word “soul” in Ezekiel 18:4, and renders this passage, “The person that sinneth the same shall die.”
The Apostle Peter confirms the fact that the soul is not immortal. He tells us something of the righteous rule that will hold sway during Christ’s coming thousand-year kingdom reign and of the obedience that will be required of all who would then gain life. He says: “For Moses truly said unto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you. And it shall come to pass, that every soul, which will not hear [obey] that prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people.”—Acts 3:22,23
This passage is a quotation by Peter from a prophecy recorded in Deuteronomy 18:15-19, wherein Moses foretells the coming of a Greater Mediator than he, to bless the whole world of mankind in the times of restitution. In the original prophecy Moses said: “And the Lord [Jehovah] said unto me, … I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him.”
In this prophecy be it noted that Moses stated that whosoever of mankind would not obey God’s words in that future time would be punished; whereas Peter, in quoting the prophecy, used the word soul for the word whosoever. Placing Moses’ statement alongside of Peter’s, we see that (1) the human soul and the human being are one and the same thing, and that (2) this human soul is not immortal, but subject to death.
Since, therefore, man (the human soul) is not immortal, but subject to death, just what is this condition of death to which man passes? The Reader’s Digest Dictionary defines death as “the permanent cessation of all vital functions in an animal or plant.” When the Lord God created man, he formed him “of the dust of the ground.” (Gen. 2:7) When man disobeyed, he was sentenced to death and returned to the dust. “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”—Gen. 3:19
Speaking of the death condition into which man passes, the psalmist wrote: “His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.” (Ps. 146:4) Solomon stated, “The living know that they shall die; but the dead know not any thing.” (Eccles. 9:5) Solomon also said (vs. 10): “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.” From these statements by God’s holy prophets, it is clear that death is a condition of utter extinction. Man did not exist before he was created, and at death he ceases to exist.
Since death is real, we come to our last question: Is there, then, any hope of life beyond death? On this point the Bible is equally emphatic, and abundantly comforting. Although the graves of earth have been filling up with the billions of the world’s dead since Abel first returned to the dust, the Bible assures us that there shall be a resurrection of the dead.
We have seen that man was condemned to death and returned to the dust because of sin. Man has been going down into the grave, into oblivion, into nonexistence ever since because of that sin. The Apostle Paul wrote, “By one man [Father Adam] sin entered the world, and death … [because of] sin; and so death passed upon all men, for … all have sinned.”—Rom. 5:12
But happily, because he knew God’s plan for man, the apostle did not stop his inspired statement at that point. He continued, “As one man’s [Adam’s] trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man’s [Jesus’] act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men.” (Rom. 5:18, RSV) Elsewhere Paul explains this sacrificial act of Jesus’ as providing a ransom, or corresponding price, to redeem man from death. He wrote to Timothy: “God … will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.”—I Tim. 2:3-6
In his letter to the church at Corinth, Paul further wrote: “For since by man [Adam] came death, by man [Jesus] came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” (I Cor. 15:21,22) Jesus himself foretold that joyous time to come when all who have ever lived on this earth will be restored to life. He told his disciples, “The hour is coming in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth.”—John 5:28,29
The Bible speaks of this glorious coming period as “the times of restitution … which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.” (Acts 3:21) That is the long-hoped-for, long-prayed-for time when the kingdom of Christ will be established in the earth for the blessing of all mankind. (Gen. 22:18) All who ever lived and died, both good and evil, will be brought back from the grave, the condition of death.—Acts 24:15
All will be given an opportunity to obey the righteous laws of Christ’s kingdom. “Every soul [or human being] which will not hear that prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people.” (Acts 24:15; 3:19-23) But every soul (human being) who obeys shall gain everlasting life right here on earth. And at the end of the thousand-year kingdom reign of Christ and his church, even death itself will be destroyed. “And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. … And there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.”—Rev. 20:14; 21:4
What a glorious prospect the great Creator has in store for the redeemed and restored human race! What a blessing he has planned for all through the gift of his beloved Son Jesus! Man will indeed be brought back from the death condition and will live again—not because he is immortal, not because some humanly constituted committee of physicians, psychiatrists, and scientists has eliminated death. It will be because God, in his matchless love and mercy, arranged for mortal man’s release from the chains of death by providing a Savior and Redeemer, even our Lord Jesus Christ.
But what about immortality, that condition wherein death is not possible—does not the Bible speak of such a quality? Oh, yes, it does, indeed! But this is not to be the lot of the world of mankind. In a letter to Timothy, Paul ascribed this quality of immortality to the great Creator of the universe: “Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God.” (I Tim. 1:17) Later in the same letter he describes God as “the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; who only hath immortality.”—I Tim. 6:15
Because of our Lord Jesus’ faithfulness unto death in doing his Heavenly Father’s will, immortality was granted to him following his resurrection. While he was still with the disciples, Jesus foretold this promised reward when he said, “As the Father hath life in himself [inherent life, immortality]; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself.”—John 5:26
This same quality of immortality will be the reward of the footstep followers of Jesus. But it will not be lightly bestowed; it will be given only to those who in this life deny themselves, faithfully laying down their lives in sacrifice. (Matt. 16:24) These “seek for glory and honor and immortality” by patient continuance in well doing. (Rom. 2:7) These shall be kings and priests unto God (Rev. 1:6) and “on such the second death hath no power,” because they shall henceforth be immortal. They shall live and reign with Christ a thousand years.—Rev. 20:6
Thus shall death be swallowed up in victory! Thus shall be abundantly satisfied the innermost longings of the hearts of all God’s human creatures for life, joyous life, life without fear of any kind for oneself or for one’s loved ones. For Jesus’ faithful followers of this Gospel Age the promise is life immortal in the glorious presence of their Heavenly Father and his beloved Son Jesus; for those of the resurrected world of mankind who prove obedient to the laws of Christ’s thousand-year reign of righteousness, the promise is everlasting life on the human plane, right here on a glorious, beautifully restored Planet Earth, where each shall love his neighbor as himself. We believe that world events are telling us that the time for the establishment of Christ’s kingdom in the earth is near.
“And in this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined.
“And he will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the veil that is spread over all nations.
“He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth; for the Lord hath spoken it.
“And it shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us: this is the Lord; we have waited for him, we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”—Isa. 25:6-9