State of the Dead
What do the following Bible texts tell us about humanity’s condition in death? Ps. 146:4; Eccles. 9:5, 6; John 11:11–14; Acts 2:34.
Inspiration teaches that only God is immortal (1 Tim. 6:16) and that human beings apart from God are subject to death. Jesus taught that death is a sleep that ends in one of two resurrections–a resurrection of life and a resurrection of damnation (John 5:28, 29). William Temple, archbishop of Canterbury, recognized this when he wrote, “Man is not immortal by nature or of right; but he is capable of immortality and there is offered to him resurrection from the dead and life eternal if he will receive it from God and on God’s terms.”—Nature, Man, and God, p. 472.
How are we to understand texts such as Matthew 25:46 and Revelation 14:9-11? Do they teach eternal torment in hell?
The notion of human immortality is found in all primal, animistic, and polytheistic religions. It was also an important concept in Greek philosophy, which conceived of Hades (the world of the dead) as a ghostly, shadowy underworld, in which the soul lived a twilight existence. The Greeks viewed human beings as consisting of matter and soul. At death, matter and soul are separated, releasing the soul from the prison house of matter into an independent existence.
In Matthew 25 and Revelation 14, the words translated “everlasting” and “for ever” do not mean necessarily never ending. The Greek words aion and aionios express duration as long as the nature of the subject allows. For example, in Jude 7 we are told that the cities Sodom and Gomorrah are suffering the punishment of eternal (aionios) fire. Yet, 2 Peter 2:6 says that they were turned into ashes. When the subject of the words “eternal” or “forever” is the life of the redeemed who have received immortality the word means a time without end. When it refers to the punishment of the wicked, who do not receive immortality, the word has the meaning of a limited time period.
| From popular preachers to popular films, the world is flooded with spiritualism (the idea that the dead live on now in another existence). How does our understanding of the state of the dead give us powerful protection against this terrible deception? |
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