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 E are your
rejoicing, even as ye also are ours (when?) in the day of the Lord
Jesus.” 2Co 1:14 1Th 2:19. “For what is our hope, or joy, or
crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord
Jesus Christ at his coming? The inspired writers express no hope of
meeting their brethren in the intermediate state. By the spirit of
truth, they teach us, that our departed friends have gone not to
heaven, but, “to the grave,” into “silence,” and “darkness”-that
they have “fallen asleep,” and “shall not awake until the heavens be
no more.” They plainly teach that their minds, as well as their
bodies, are, at present, under the dominion of death-that they “know
not any thing,” and that their thoughts are perished. Yet, to them,
the simple fact, that when Christ, who is our life, shall appear,
then shall we also appear with him in glory, was an anticipation
perfectly adequate to fill their most enlarged desires. Those who
loved the Savior, although they had not seen him and had no
expectation of seeing him until his second coming, “yet believing”
in his bright appearing, rejoiced “with joy unspeakable and full of
glory.” 1Pe 1:7,8 13 . The prayers of the discerning saints
imply that the intermediate state is a condition of unconsciousness.
Ps 6:4,5. “Return, O Lord, deliver my soul: Oh save me for thy mercies’
sake. For in death there is no remembrance of thee: in the grave who
shall give thee thanks?” Ps 88:10,11. “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?” Now if David expected to praise God with “noble
powers,” at death, he would never have offered such a plea for his
recovery. How evident it is that he understood death to be the
“destruction”of all those powers which are employed in the praise of
God. So Hezekiah, Isa 38:16,19. “So wilt thou recover me, and
make me to live-for the grave cannot praise thee, death cannot
celebrate thee: they that go down to the pit cannot hope for they
truth. The living, the living, he shall praise thee as I do this
day.” The popular theory is the reverse of all this, and contradicts
Hezekiah, assuring him that if he had died, he would have praised
God better than he did that day. If these saints were going
immediately to join the choir of celestial worshipers, their
language could not have been more inappropriate. What modern
christian, who believes in the separate existence of the soul, ever
uses such pleas for recovery as did David and Hezekiah? It is not to
be affirmed that this is the language of ignorance. It is not the
language of doubt or uncertainty. Their words contain positive
assurances of the real state of the dead. Our Savior confirms the
same truth, Joh 3:13. “No man hath ascended up to heaven.”
Peter said of David, Ac 2:34, that he “is not ascended into
the heavens.”
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