17. After Death
AFTER DEATH
Please explainHebrews 9:27which reads as follows: “And it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.”
It hardly needs explaining, for it means precisely what it says. Observe, it does not say that all men are thus appointed. Since we are assured in 1 Cormthians 15:51 that “we shall not all sleep,” some of us are hoping to be excused from keeping this appointment.
I should like to ask you to tell me what Jesus meant inMatthew 8:22, “Let the dead bury their dead”?
It means “Let the spiritually dead bury their physically dead.” It should be read in relation to its context in the verses preceding.
If the Lord Jesus “hath abolished death,” as stated in2 Timothy 1:10, why is it that people, including Christians, go on dying?
There are three kinds of death: physical death, spiritual death, and the second death. Physical death is the least important of all. It is the separation of the body from the spirit and soul. Spiritual death is separation from God who is the source of all life. The second death is this spiritual death prolonged into eternity and in the lake of fire. Our Lord Jesus Christ has abolished spiritual and the second death for all who take their place under the shelter of His shed blood. And for these He has robbed even physical death of it terror, assuring them that if they should die they would be at once absent from the body and present with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:6-8). And finally even physical death will be abolished for believers, for we are assured that “we shall not all sleep” (1 Corinthians 15:51); that is, we shall not all die. Some of us will be alive and remaining at the coming of our Lord (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18), and will therefore go to heaven without dying. Where do we get our authority for saying Paradise was beneath, in explainingEphesians 4:8-10? Please explain fully with Scripture reference. This question involves the study of the Greek word “Hades” and the Hebrew word “Sheol.” Dr. Scofield’s exposition of this subject is so good that we shall not try to improve upon it: Hades, “the unseen world,” is revealed as the place of departed human spirits between death and resurrection. The word occurs, Matthew 11:23; Matthew 16:18; Luke 10:15; Luke 16:23; Acts 2:27; Acts 2:31; Revelation 1:18; Revelation 6:8; Revelation 20:13-14, and is the equivalent of the Old Testament ‘Sheol.’ The Septuagint invariably renders ‘Sheol’ by ‘Hades.’
Hades before the ascension of Christ. The passages in which the word occurs make it clear that Hades was formerly in two divisions, the abodes respectively of the saved and of the lost. The former was called “Paradise” and “Abraham’s bosom.” Both designations were Talmudic, but adopted by Christ in Luke 16:22; Luke 23:43. The blessed dead were with Abraham; they were conscious and were “comforted” (Luke 16:25) The believing malefactor was to be, that day, with Christ in “Paradise.” The lost were separated from the saved by a “great gulf fixed” (Luke 16:26). The representative man of the lost who are now in Hades is the rich man of Luke 16:19-31. He was alive, conscious, in the full exercise of his faculties, memory, etc., and in torment.
Hades since the ascension of Christ. So far as the unsaved dead are concerned, no change of their place or condition is revealed in Scripture. At the judgment of the Great White Throne, Hades will give them up, they will be judged, and will pass into the Lake of Fire (Revelation 20:13-14). But a change has taken place which affects Paradise. Paul was “caught up to the third heaven ... into Paradise” (2 Corinthians 12:1-4). Paradise, therefore, is now in the immediate presence of God. It is believed that Ephesians 4:8-10 indicates the time of the change. “When he ascended up on high he led a multitude of captives.” It is immediately added that He had previously “descended first into the lower parts of the earth,” that is, the Paradise division of Hades. During the present Church-age the saved who have died are “absent from the body, and at home with the Lord.” The wicked dead in Hades and the righteous dead “at home with the Lord,” alike await the resurrection (Job 19:26; 1 Corinthians 15:52).
Please, does the word “hell” mean the grave every time it is mentioned in Holy Writ? Some of my friends insist upon this. If you can help me, please do so. Your friends are wrong. The English translators have confused several words in both Testaments by translating them into the words “grave,” “hell,” etc. The awful truth about hell is found in our Lord’s own words in Mark 9:42-48. Hell is the lake of fire, into which death and hades are to be finally cast, with all their occupants (Revelation 20:14-15). The Roman Catholics claim that everyone goes to Hell. InActs 2:27andActs 2:34I find some things I cannot understand. Please explain. Does the spirit of everyone who dies go to The Father who gave it? Does this include the wicked as well as Christians ? The Roman Catholic teaching is not that everyone must go into Hell, but that everyone must for a longer or shorter time go into Purgatory. This doctrine is based not upon Scripture, but upon the traditions of the church, which are without value to a believer in the Word of God.
“Hell” in Acts 2:27 should read “Hades.” Our Lord’s soul did not go into Hell, but it did go into Hades, which until His resurrection included the abode of the saved and that of the lost, though these were separated by “a great gulf fixed” and impassable (Luke 16:26). At His resurrection He took with Him to Heaven all the saved out of Hades, and since that time, the saved, at death, go immediately to be “with the Lord” in Heaven (Ephesians 4:8-10; 2 Corinthians 5:6-8).
It is only the saved whose spirits go to God. The lost go to their “own place” (Acts 1:25). Are we to understand fromRevelation 22:11that the lost will continue sinning in hell? If so, how can they sin in the bodies they will have then?
I can see no reason why the lost should not be able to sin as well “in the bodies they will have then” as in the bodies they have now. And doubtless they will go on sinning. Corruption never stops in its process. It goes on getting worse and worse. The language of the Revised Version in the verse you cite is exceedingly solemn: “He that is unrighteous, let him do unrighteousness still: and he that is filthy, let him be made filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him do righteousness still: and he that is holy, let him be made holy still”; and in the margin the word for “still” is always rendered “yet more”; indicating that the filthy will go on becoming filthier throughout the ages. May God forbid that any of my readers should end in such a fate! Where does the Bible state that the lake of fire is hell?
If you will read Mark 9:42-48; Matthew 25:41 and Revelation 20:14-15, I think you will be convinced that the lake of fire and hell are two names for the same place. (It should be noted that the word for “hell” in Revelation 20:14 should be translated “hades.”)
Jesus and the penitent thief went to Paradise, did they not? Where is Paradise? Do we all go to some place at death to he there temporarily, before we go to Heaven?
Paradise, before the resurrection of Christ, was a part of Hades; but after the resurrection of Christ it became a part of Heaven, for in 2 Corinthians 12:4 it is identified with “the third heaven.” See Luke 16:19-26; Acts 2:25-27. In these passages “hell” should read “hades.” See also Ephesians 4:7-10, which evidently marks the point of transition when Paradise and all its inhabitants were removed from Hades to Heaven. Will you please explain or harmonize the apparently conflicting statements, “today shall thou be with me in paradise,” with, “As Jonah was there three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man,” etc.?
Only the body of our Lord went into the grave. His soul and spirit went (with the dying thief) to Hades, which then included Paradise. After the resurrection, the Paradise section, so to speak, of Hades was removed to Heaven. Will you explain if after death the departed ones are perfectly conscious of where they are, and are the saved ones able to see and speak with our Lord? Please give the Scriptures which point out your answer. The departed, both saved and unsaved, are perfectly conscious; and the saved are “absent from the body and at home with the Lord” (Luke 16:19-31; 2 Corinthians 5:6-8, R.V.). That the saved are able to see and speak with the Lord with whom they are thus “at home” is beyond doubt We are able to speak to Him even from here; surely those who are in His bodily presence will not be less privileged than we. See also Revelation 6:9-11; Revelation 22:4. Will you please tell us the state of those who have gone home to be with the Lord Jesus? Do they see and talk with our Savior, and do they walk around? When the unsaved are raised do they put on their old, vile, diseased and crippled bodies? The saved put on incorruptible bodies, but what about the unsaved? The Scriptures do not give full light on all these questions. We are sure, however, that the saved who have gone on before are now absent from the body, and at home with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:8, R.V.). That they see the Lord seems to be clear from Matthew 18:10, where our Lord in speaking of little children says: “That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in Heaven.” While they do not yet have their resurrection bodies, for “without us” they can “not be made perfect” (Hebrews 11:40) that is, they with us, wait “for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body” (Romans 8:23). Meanwhile, it is apparent from certain Scriptures, that pending the time when they shall have their resurrection body they even now have something corresponding to a body which enables them to communicate with each other and with their surroundings (Revelation 6:9-11; Revelation 7:9-17). As to the resurrection bodies of the unsaved I have no light. That there is to be such a bodily resurrection for them is certain from Revelation 20:11-15, but the nature of those bodies is not described in Scripture.
What is the Bema? The Bema is “the judgment seat of Christ” referred to in 2 Corinthians 5:10, and related to the judgment of believers’ works, which judgment is described in 1 Corinthians 3:11-15. At this judgment only the saved will appear, and it will be there that their rewards, if any, will be given to them. “If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon (that is, upon the foundation ‘which is Jesus Christ’) he shall receive a reward (not salvation, for that is already his in the foundation, but a ‘reward in addition to salvation’). If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.” God offers salvation to the lost and rewards to the saved. Salvation is a gift, in response to faith, while rewards are earned by works. Salvation is the believer’s present possession, but rewards are a future attainment.
What do you think the parable of the rich man and Lazarus teaches?
1. There seems to be no question of right and wrong; only rich and poor. The rich man was punished because he had been rich and the poor man was comforted. “Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now (therefore) he is comforted, and thou art tormented.” And the preaching of Moses and the prophets, to whom he was referred, would not be the gospel of salvation by faith in Jesus Christ.
2. Again, it is said that this is not a parable but rather a statement of a fact, an occurrence. Then do you think that, although Heaven and Hell are “afar off’ from each other, you can look over and converse from one to the other? I hope not.
1. It is not stated that “the rich man was punished because he had been rich,” nor that the poor man was saved on account of his poverty. The facts are given, but why the rich man was punished or the poor man comforted is not explained. The implication, however, is sufficiently clear that the rich man was supremely selfish—all that could be said of him was that he dressed lavishly and fared sumptuously. God was not in his program, nor yet Lazarus, nor any one but himself. As for Lazarus, it may be significant that his name is given, being the Greek form of Eleazar—”helped of God.” Certainly we may be sure that our Lord never intended this story to contradict all His teachings elsewhere on salvation by faith.
2. There is no indication of a parable here. Our Lord is telling a true history of what happened to two men who once lived and died. No parable of Scripture mentions any person’s name. No, we shall not look into Hell from Heaven. As a matter of fact, Lazarus was not in Heaven, nor the rich man in Hell. Both of them were in Hades, though each in a separate part of Hades, and the two parts were divided by an impassable gulf. Since that time Lazarus has been transferred from Hades to Heaven. This change took place at our Lord’s ascension, when “he led captivity captive,” (Psalms 68:18, Ephesians 4:8). The rich man will remain in Hades until after the Millennium, when “death and Hades” shall be “cast into the lake of fire,” which is Hell, the final abode of the lost. (Revelation 20:13-14).
What is meant by “the valley of the shadow of death” (Psalms 23:4) and also, “the land of the shadow of death” (Isaiah 9:2)? By “the valley of the shadow of death” the psalmist evidently referred to the experience awaiting him when he should die. The same idea was in Job’s mind when he said: “Are not my days few? Cease then, and let me alone, that I may take comfort a little, before I go whence I shall not return, even to the land of darkness and the shadow of death; a land of darkness, as darkness itself; and of the shadow of death, without any order, and where the light is as darkness” (Job 10:20-22). Such was the view of death held by the patriarch before God gave man a Bible. In Psalms 88:12 David called the place beyond the horizon “the land of forgetfulness.” The prophecy of Isaiah 9:1-2 was fulfilled in our Lord’s visit to Galilee, as shown by Matthew 4:13-16, and there “the land of the shadow of death” seems to be identified with “Galilee of the Gentiles.” The fact is that men who are separated from God are constandy living in the shadow of death, being “through fear of death... all their lifetime subject to bondage” (Hebrews 2:15). How good it is to know Him “who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Timothy 1:10)! Those who know Him may truly say, ‘Tea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil: for thou art with me; diy rod and thy staff they comfort me.” The Seventh Day Adventists claim that the Annihilation of the wicked is taught inMalachi 4:1by the words “that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.” Is this claim true?
No. Annihilationism is a doctrine unknown to Scripture and opposed to it. The language of Amos 2:9 is similar. The destruction predicted in such Scriptures has nothing to do with the souls and spirits of men in the sense of annihilating them; it refers only to the wiping out of God’s enemies from the earth.
I have a friend who says that when a person dies his soul is sleeping until Christ come, and also that there is no Hell. What is the answer? The answer is that your friend is poisoned with Russellism or some other doctrine contrary to Scripture. The Word of God teaches plainly enough, concerning bodi the saved and the lost, that they are perfecdy conscious after death, that the saved dead are absent from the body and present with the Lord, that Heaven is the final abode of the saved, and Hell of the lost (Luke 16:19-31; 2 Corinthians 5:6-8; Revelation 20:6; Revelation 20:12-15).