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 N the day thou eatest thereof, dying, THOU shalt die, (Heb.) Ge 2:17; on what
authority do we affirm that this is inapplicable to the entire man?
On what authority do we affirm that the main part of man, the very
part which is chiefly guilty of transgression, shall escape this
penalty, and never die at all? “The soul that sinneth it shall die.”
Eze 18:4; Read Ge 19:20 Ps 89:48 33:19. Why then do any
speak of the never dying soul? -“The wages of sin is death.” Death
is the opposite of life; the cessation or deprivation of it.
To say that the threatening is spiritual death, is not only to
reject the literal import of the term without necessity, but it is
to confound the crime with the penalty. Spiritual death is sin, it
is the crime, not the penalty. The Scriptures teach that the soul or
spirit dies with the body, by the positive assurance that “in that
very day his thoughts perish.” Ps 146:4. “The dead know not
any thing, neither have they any more a reward-also their love, and
hatred, and their envy is now perished.” Ec 9:5,6,10. Do not
the thoughts and affections pertain to the soul or mind? If these
perish, where is the soul? How striking is the contrast between the
popular theory and the testimony of the Eternal Spirit! The former
affirms that the dead know more than they did before. The latter,
that they “know not any thing.” The former declares that they have
gone to their reward. The latter, that neither have they (present
tense) any more a reward. The popular opinion says that the love of
the righteous and the envy of the wicked are, at death, perfected.
The Bible says that both are perished.
So David, Ps 6:5; declares that “in death there is no
remembrance of thee.” The pious poet said, “And when my voice is
lost in death, praise shall employ my nobler powers.“ The pious
psalmist said, “The dead praise not the Lord.” Ps 115:17; “man
giveth up the ghost and where is he!” Would Job have used such
language, if he believed that the main part of man never died at
all? He answers the question, not by affirming that the body only
dies, but by declaring the glorious doctrine of the resurrection.
This language plainly implies that all man’s future life depends on
this doctrine. “All the days of my appointed time will I wait, till
my change come. Thou shalt call (i.e., when the last trumpet shall
sound) and I will answer thee: thou wilt have a desire to the work
of my hands.” Job 14:14,15.
In respect to the state between death and the resurrection, he
declares it is as though we never had any existence, which certainly
is not true, if the principal part of man is in a conscious state.-
“Wherefore then hast thou brought me forth out of the womb! O! that
I had given up the ghost (spirit) and no eye had seen me. I should
have been as though I had not been.” Job 10:18,19. The
reference to the state anterior to birth makes no difference, for in
that state he possessed a spirit to be given up, which returns to
God who gave it. Here we learn that giving up the spirit, or soul,
or life, and its returning to God who gave it, is consistent with
the fact of its unconsciousness in the intermediate state.
Death, so long as it reigns over man, places him on a level with
brutes. “Even one thing befalleth them; as the one dieth so dieth
the other; yea, they have all one breath: so that a man (in the
matter of death) hath no pre-eminence above the beast.” Ec
3:19. It is the glorious doctrine of a resurrection unto eternal
life, which gives us the pre-eminence.
Some persons appear to have too little confidence in the testimony
of the Old Testament Saints. I ask, if they are not the very “holy
men” whom the inspired apostle declares “spake as they were moved by
the Holy Ghost?” It would seem that such persons have but little
confidence in the apostle himself. How did Job know that his
Redeemer lived, and should stand in the latter day on the earth, and
that in his flesh he (Job) should see God? How did he know that God
would call to him in the grave and that he would answer him? How, I
ask, did he know these things but by the teaching of the Holy
Spirit? If we believe his testimony concerning the resurrection, why
should we not believe his testimony concerning the intermediate
state, that it is a state without knowledge, “His sons come to honor
and he knoweth it not,”&c., a state of as perfect unconsciousness as
though he had not been?
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