The Dead Unconscious, The Resurrection, and Consequent Error of Popular Belief In Heaven and Hell

IF CHRISTENDOM is astray on the nature of man, it naturally follows that it is astray on the state of the dead, its theory of which occupies so large a place in the theology of the day. We now look at this subject in the light of facts and the testimony of Scripture.

Deathis the greatest fact in human experience, considered in its relation to the individual. Its occurrence is universal and inevitable: its gloomy shadow, sooner or later, darkens every house. Who has not felt its iron hand? Who has not beheld the loved one chilled and stiffened by its desolating blast? The blooming child with all its prattling innocence and winning ways: the companion of youth, rosy, and healthful, and gay; the cherished wife, the devoted husband, the tried and trusty friend, which of them has not been torn from our side by the terrible hand of this ruthless and indiscriminating enemy? One day we have seen them with bright eye, beaming countenance, supple frame, and have heard the words of friendship and intelligence drop from their living lips; the next we look upon them stretched on the bier-still, cold, motionless, ghastly, dead!

What shall we say to these things? Death brings grief to the living. It overwhelms them with a sorrow that refuses consolation. It is not for ourselves that we mourn; news of life would bring gladness, even if friends were far distant, and intercourse impossible. No, it is for the dead our hearts are pained. Let us consider the bearing of this upon the popular theology of the day. If death be merely a change of state, and not a destruction of being, why all this heartbreaking for those who have gone? It cannot be on account of the uncertainties "beyond the grave," because our grief is quite as poignant for those who are believed to have "gone to heaven," as for those about whom doubts may be entertained. Tears flow quite as fast for the good as for the bad, and perhaps, a little faster. There is something inconsistent with the popular theory here. If our friends are really gone to "glory," we ought to feel as thankful as we do when they are promoted to honour "here below"; but we do not; and why? The evidence will justify the answer. Because the strength of natural instinct can never be overcome by theological fiction. Men will never practically believe the occurrence of death to be the commencement of life, when they see it to be the extinction of all they ever knew or felt of life.

If the dead are not dead, but "gone before;" if they are "praising God among the ransomed above," they are alive, and, therefore, they have merely changed a place of "temporal" for a place of eternal abode. They have simply shifted out of the body from earth to heaven, or to hell, as the case may be. The word "death," in its original meaning, has, therefore, no application to man. It has lost its meaning as popularly employed. It is no longer the antithesis of "life." It no longer means the cessation of living existence (its radical signification), but simply means a change of habitation. "A man die? No, impossible! He may go out of the body, but he CANNOT DIE." This is the popular sentiment-the dictum of the world's wisdom-the tenacious belief of the religious world.

We shall enquire if there is anything in the teaching of the Holy Scriptures, or in the testimony of nature to warrant this belief. And we shall find that there is not only an entire absence of warrant for it, but great evidence to show that death invades a man's being and robs him of existence, and that consequently in death he is as totally unconscious as though he had never lived. Let the reader suspend his judgment. He will find that the sequel will justify this answer, appalling as it may at first appear.

First, let us consider, for a moment, the primary idea expressed by the word death. It is the opposite of life. We know life as a matter of positive experience. The idea of death is derived from this experience. Death is the word that describes its interruption, or negation, or stopping. Whether life is used literally or figuratively; whether it is affirmed of a creature or an institution, death is the opposite of the life so spoken of. It means the absence or departure of the life. In order, therefore, to understand death in relation to our present enquiry, we must have a definite conception of life. We cannot understand life in a metaphysical sense; but this is no bar to our investigation; for the difficulty in this sense is neither greater nor less than in the case of the animals, and in the case of the animals people profess to find no difficulty in reconciling the mystery of life with the occurrence of actual death.

Throwing metaphysics aside, we need but ask ourselves, what is life as known experimentally? It is the answer of literal truth to say that it is the aggregate result of the organic processes transpiring within the human structure-in respiration, circulation of the blood, digestion, etc. The lungs, the heart, and the stomach conspire to generate and sustain vitality, and to impart activity to the various faculties of which we are composed. Apart from this busy organism, life is unmanifested, whether as regards man or beast. Shock the brain, and insensibility ensues; take away the air, and you produce suffocation; cut off the supply of food, and starvation ensues with fatal effect. These facts, which everybody knows, prove that life depends on the organism. They show that human life, with its mysterious phenomena of thought and feeling, is the evolution of the complicated machinery of which we are so "fearfully and wonderfully made." That machinery, in full and harmonious action, is a sufficient explanation of the life we now live. In it and by it we exist.

Now, whatever prejudice the reader may feel against this presentation of the matter, he cannot evade recognising this, that there was a time when we did not exist. This important fact shows the possibility of nonexistence in relation to man. The question is, shall this state of nonexistence again supervene? And this is a simple question of experience, on which, alas! experience speaks but too plainly. Since human existence depends on material organic function, nonexistence ensues upon the interruption of that function. By experience we know that this interruption does take place, and that man dies in consequence. Death comes to him and undoes what birth did for him. The one gave him existence; the other takes it away. "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return," is realized in every man's experience. In the course of nature, his being vanishes from creation, and all his qualities submerge in death for the simple reason that the organism that develops them then stops its working.

These are the facts of the case from a natural point of view. But when we look into the Scriptures it is astonishing how much stronger the case becomes. When the Scriptures speak about the death of anyone, they do not employ the phraseology of the modern religionist. They do not say of the righteous that they have "gone to their reward," or "gone to their last account," or that they have "winged their flight to a better world"; or of the wicked, that they are "gone to appear before the bar of God, to answer for their misdeeds." The language is expressive of a contrary doctrine. The death of Abraham, the father of the faithful, is thus recorded:-

"And Abraham gave up the ghost, and died in a good old age, an old man, and full of years, and was gathered to his people " (Gen. 25v8).

So also in the case of Isaac:-

"And Isaac gave up the ghost and died, and was gathered unto his people " (Gen. 35v29).

So of Jacob:-

"And when Jacob had made an end of commanding his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto his people " (Gen. 49v33).

Of Joseph it is simply said:-

"So Joseph died, being an hundred and ten years old, and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt " (Gen. 1v26).

So in the case of Moses:-

"So Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there, in the land of Moab according to the word of the Lord. And he buried him in a valley, in the land of Moab, over against Bethpeor, but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day " (Deut. 34v5, 6).

And so we shall find it in the case of Joshua (Jos. 24v29), Samuel (1 Sam. 25v1), David (1 Kings 2v1, 2, 10; Acts 2v29, 34); Solomon (1 Kings 11v43), and all others whose death is recorded in the Scriptures. They are never said to have gone away anywhere, but are always spoken of as dying, giving up their life, and returning to the ground. The same style of language is adopted by Paul when he speaks of the generation of the righteous dead. He says (Heb. 11v13):-

"These all died in faith, NOT HAVING RECEIVED THE PROMISES, but having seen them afar off. "

If Jesus spake of the death of Lazarus, he recognized the fact in its plainest sense (John 11v11-14):-

"He (Jesus) saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go that I may awake him out of sleep. Then said his disciples, Lord if he sleep, he shall do well. Howbeit Jesus spake of his death, but they thought he had spoken of taking rest in sleep. Then said Jesus unto them plainly, LAZARUS IS DEAD. "

When Luke records the death of Stephen (Acts 7v60), he does not indulge in any of the highflown deathbed rapture so prevalent in modern religious literature. He simply says, " He fell asleep. " Or when Paul has occasion to refer to deceased Christians, he does not speak of them as " standing before the throne of God! " The words he employs are in keeping with those already quoted (1 Thess, 4v13):-

"I would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are ASLEEP, that ye sorrow not, even as others who have no hope. "

There are no exceptions to these cases in Bible narrative. All Bible allusion to the subject of death is as unlike modern sentiment as it is possible to conceive. The Bible speaks of death as the ending of life, and never as the commencement of another state. Not once does it tell us of a dead man having gone to heaven. Not once, except by an allowable poetical figure (Isa. 14v4) or for purposes of parable (Luke 16v19-31), are the dead represented as conscious. They are always pictured in language that accords with experience-always spoken of as in the land of darkness, and silence, and unconsciousness. Solomon says:-

"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 " (Eccles. 9v10).

Job, in the anguish of accumulated calamity, cursed the day of his birth, and wished he had died when an infant, and mark what he says would have been the consequence:-

"For now should I have lain still and been quiet: I should have slept; then had I been at rest with kings and counsellors of the earth, which built desolate places [Tombs] for themselves: or with princes that had gold, who filled their houses with silver, or as an hidden untimely birth I HAD NOT BEEN, as infants which never saw the light; there the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary be at rest. There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor; the small and great are there, and the servant is free from his master " (Job 3v1319).

Healso makes the following statement, which with the one just quoted, ought to be well considered by those who believe that babies go to heaven when they die:-

(Chapter 10v18)- " Wherefore hast thou brought me forth out of the womb? O, that I had given up the ghost, and no eye had seen me, I should have been AS THOUGH I HAD NOT BEEN. "

David incidentally alludes to the state of the dead in the following impressive words (Psa. 88v10-12):-

"Free among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, whom thou rememberest no more; and they are cut off from Thy hand. "

"Wilt thou show wonders to the dead? Shall the dead arise and praise Thee? Shall Thy loving kindness be declared in the grave, or Thy faithfulness in destruction? Shall Thy wonders be known in the dark, and Thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness? "

These questions are answered in a short but emphatic statement, which occurs in the 115th Psalm, verse 17:-

"The DEAD praise NOT the Lord, neither ANY that go down into silence. "

And the Psalmist gives pathetic expression to his own view of man's evanescent nature, in the following words, which have a direct bearing on the state of the dead:-

(Psa. 39v5, 12-13)- " Behold, thou hast made my days as an handbreadth, and mine age is as nothing before Thee. Verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity.... Hear my prayer, O Lord, and give ear unto my cry; hold not Thy peace at my tears, for I am a stranger with Thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were. O, spare me, that I may recover strength, before I go hence, and BE NO MORE. "

He says in Psalm 146v2, " While I live will I praise the Lord, I will sing praises unto my God WHILE I HAVE ANY BEING; " clearly implying that in David's view, his being would cease with the occurrence of death.

In addition to these general indications of the destructive nature of death as a deprivation of being, there are other statements in the Scriptures which specifically deny that the dead have any consciousness. For instance:-

"The living know that they shall die, but THE DEAD KNOW NOT ANYTHING, neither have they any more a reward, for the memory of them is forgotten; also their love, and their hatred, and their envy is now PERISHED, neither have they any more a portion for ever in anything that is done under the sun " (Eccles. 9v5, 6).

How often we hear the remark concerning the dead, " Ah, well! He knows all now! " What shall we say about it? If Solomon's words have any meaning, the remark is the very opposite of true. What can be more explicit? " The dead know not anything. " It would certainly be a wonderful feat of exegesis that should make this mean " The dead know everything. " How common again, to believe that after death, the dead will love and serve God with greater devotion in heaven, because freed from the clog of this mortal body; or curse Him with hotter hatred in hell, for the same reason; that, in fact, their love will be perfected, and their hate intensified; in the very face of Solomon's declaration to the contrary. " Their love and their hatred, and their envy are now perished. " David is equally decisive on this point. He says (Psa. 146v3, 4):-

"Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help; his breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day HIS THOUGHTS PERISH. "

Again(Psalm 6v5):-

"In death THERE IS NO REMEMBRANCE OF THEE: in the grave who shall give thee thanks? "

Hezekiah, king of Israel, gives similar testimony. He had been " sick, nigh unto death, " and on his recovery, he indited a song of praise to God, in which he gave the following reason for thanksgiving:-

"For the grave cannot praise Thee, death cannot celebrate Thee, they that go down into the pit CANNOT hope for Thy truth. The living , THE LIVING, HE shall praise Thee as I do this day " Isa. 38v18, 19).

This array of Scripture testimony must be conclusive with those with whom Scripture authority carries weight. If there is anything decisive in the verdict of Scripture, the state of the dead ought no longer to be a debatable question. The Bible settles it against all philosophical speculation. It teaches that death is a total eclipse of being-a complete obliteration of our conscious selves from God's universe. This will do no violence to the feelings of those who are governed by wisdom of the type inculcated in the Scriptures. Such will but bow in the presence of God's appointment, whatever it is. They would do this if the appointment were harder to receive than it is in this case. Instead of being hard to receive, it accords with our experience and our instincts. And still better, it frees all Bible doctrine from obscurity.

It establishes the doctrine of the resurrection on the firm foundation of necessity; for in this view, a future life is only attainable by resurrection; whereas, in the popular view, future life is a natural growth from the present, affected neither one way nor the other by the " resurrection of the body. " In fact it is difficult to see any use for resurrection at all if we accept the popular idea; for if a man " goes to his reward " at death and enjoys all the felicity of heaven of which his nature is capable, it seems incongruous that, after a certain time, he should be compelled to leave the celestial regions, and rejoin his body on earth, when without that body he is supposed to have so much more capability of enjoyment. The resurrection seems out of place in such a system; and accordingly we find that, nowadays, many are abandoning it, and vainly trying to explain away the New Testament doctrine of physical resurrection altogether, in favour of the Swedenborgian theory of spiritual resuscitation.

We have cited many Scriptures in proof of the reality of death, and the consequent unconsciousness of those who are dead. Those Scriptures are not ambiguous. They are clear, plain, and intelligible. Now, suppose the positive declarations they make were propounded in the form of interrogations, to any modern religious teacher, or to any of the intelligent among his flock, would their answers be at all in harmony with those declarations? Let us see. Suppose we enquire, " Do the dead know anything? " what would the answer be? " Oh yes, they know a great deal more than the living. " Or let us ask, " When a man goes to the grave, do his thoughts perish? " The answer would instantly be, in the words of a " reverend " gentleman, in a funeral sermon, " Oh no, we rejoice to know that death, though it may close our mortal history, is not the termination of our existence-it is not even the suspension of consciousness. " Or again, Is there any remembrance of God in death? " Oh yes, the righteous dead know Him more perfectly, and love Him more fully than they did when on earth. " Do the dead praise the Lord? " Certainly; if they are redeemed; they join in the song of Moses and the Lamb before the throne. " Do babies that die pass away as though they had never been born? " No! perish the thought! They go to heaven and become angels in the presence of God. "

Thus, in every instance, popular belief, in reference to the dead, is exactly contrary to the explicit statements of Scripture. It is a belief entirely destitute of foundation. It is opposed to all truth-natural and revealed. In the last lecture, an endeavour was made to expose the fallacy of the " natural " arguments on which it is founded. We shall now look at a few of the Scriptural reasons that are generally put forward in its behalf. Those reasons are based upon certain passages that occur mostly in the New Testament; and of these passages it has to be remarked, to commence with, that, although they do bear on the face of them some apparent countenance to popular belief, not one of them affirms that belief. The evidence they are supposed to contain is purely inferential. That is, they make certain statements which are supposed to imply the doctrine sought to be proved, but they do not proclaim the doctrine itself. Now, it is important to note this general fact to commence with. It is something to know that there is not a single promise of heaven at death in the whole Bible, and not a single declaration that man has an immortal soul; and that all the supposed evidence contained in the Bible in favour of these doctrines, is so decidedly ambiguous, as to be open to disputation as to its meaning. It is important, because the testimony in favour of the opposite view (the one set forth in the present lecture), is so clear and explicit that it cannot be set aside without the grossest violation of the fundamental laws of the language. This consideration suggests an important principle of Scriptural interpretation, viz., that plain testimony ought to guide us in the understanding of what may be obscure. We ought to procure our fundamental principles from teaching that cannot be misunderstood, and harmonize all difficulties therewith. It is unwise to found a dogma on a passage, which, from its vagueness, is susceptible of two interpretations, especially if that dogma is in opposition to the unmistakable declarations of the Word of God elsewhere.

Let us for a moment apply this principle to the Scriptures cited by those who set themselves to justify the popular theory.

The first is the answer of Christ to the thief on the Cross (as set out in the Authorised Version), " Today shalt thou be with me in paradise " (Luke 23v43). This is thought to establish the common idea at once; but let us see. The pith of the argument turns upon the date of its fulfilment. Now Jesus was not in paradise in the popular sense, that day, for we find him saying to Mary after his resurrection, " Touch me not, for I AM NOT YET ASCENDED TO MY FATHER " (John 20v17). Jesus was not in heaven during at least three days after his promise to the thief. Where had he been? The answer is in the grave. Ay, but his soul asks one, where had it been? Let Peter answer (Acts 2v31). " His soul was not left in hell, neither did his flesh see corruption. " He, or " his soul, " which is equivalent to " himself, " was in the grave, or " hell " (for the words are in most cases synonymous in Scriptural use, as we shall see by-and-bye), awaiting the interference of the Father from above, to deliver him from the bonds of death. The conclusion is, that Christ's promise to the thief is of no avail whatever as a proof of the heaven going consciousness of the dead, inasmuch as it was not fulfilled in the sense in which we would require to view it before it could constitute such proof.

Has it been fulfilled at all? Let us consider the question of the thief. It was quite clear that his mind was not fixed on the idea of going to heaven. He did not say, " Lord, remember me, now that thou art about to go into thy kingdom, " but " Lord, remember me, when thou comest into thy kingdom. " He had a coming in his eye-not a going; and he looked upon it as a future event, and his desire was to be remembered when that future event should be accomplished- " when thou comest into thy kingdom. " We shall say something about this " coming " hereafter. Meanwhile it is sufficient to direct attention to the general fact, as furnishing a clue to the meaning of Christ's answer. There is good ground for the contention of those who say that Christ's answer is most properly read with the comma after " today " - " I say unto thee today, thou shalt be with me in paradise. " But in either case, the words are devoid of the meaning attached to them by those who quote them to support the popular idea.