We no longer go to paradise,right?
excerpt from the rich man and lazarus:
"THE RICH MAN AND LAZARUS (Luke xvi. 19-31)
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dealing with this Scripture, and the subject of the so-called "intermediate
state", it is important that we should confine ourselves to the Word of God, and
not go to Tradition. Yet, when nine out of ten believe what they have learnt from
Tradition, we have a thankless task, so far as pleasing man is concerned. We might
give our own ideas as to the employments, etc., of the "departed", and man would
deal leniently with us. But let us only put God's Revelation against man's
imagination, and then we shall be made to feel his wrath, and experience his
opposition.
Claiming, however, to have as great a love and jealousy for the Word of
God as any of our brethren; and as sincere a desire to find out what God says, and
what God means; we claim also the sympathy of all our fellow-members of the
Body of Christ. There are several matters to be considered before we can reach the
Scripture concerning the rich man and Lazarus; or arrive at a satisfactory
conclusion as to the State after death. It will be well for us to remember that all
such expressions as "Intermediate State", "Church Triumphant", and others similar
to them are unknown to Scripture. They have been inherited by us from Tradition,
and have been accepted without thought or examination.
Putting aside, therefore, all that we have thus been taught, let us see what
God actually does reveal to us in Scripture concerning man, in life, and in death;
and concerning the state and condition of the dead.
Psalm cxlvi. 4 declares of man,
"His breath goeth forth,
He returneth to his earth;
In that very day his thoughts perish".
God is here speaking of "Man"; not of some part of man, but of "princes", any
"man" or any "son of man" (v. 3), i.e. any and every human being begotten or
born of human parents. There is not a word about "disembodied man". No such
expression is to be found in the Scriptures! The phrase is man's own invention in
order to make this and other scriptures agree with his tradition. This Scripture
speaks of "man" as man. "His breath"; "he returneth"; "his thoughts". It is an un-
warrantable liberty to put "body" when the Holy Spirit has put "man". The passage
says nothing about the "body". It is whatever has done the thinking. The "body"
does not think. The "body" apart from the spirit has no "thoughts". Whatever has
had the "thoughts" has them no more; and this is "man". If this were the only
statement in Scripture on the subject it would be sufficient. But there are many
others.
There is Ecc. ix. 5, which declares that "The dead know not anything". This
also seems so clear as to admit of no second meaning. "The dead" are the dead;
they are those who have ceased to live; and, if the dead do or can know anything,
then words are useless for the purpose of revelation. The word "dead" here is used
in the immediate context as the opposite of "the living", e.g.:
'The living know that they shall die, But the dead know not
anything".
It does not say dead bodies know not anything, but "the dead", i.e. dead people,
who are set in contrast with "the living". As one of these "living" David says, by
the Holy Spirit (Ps. cxlvi. 2; civ. 33):
"While I live will I praise the Lord: I will sing praises unto my God
while I have any being".
There would be no praising the Lord after he had ceased to "live". Nor would there
be any singing of praises after he had ceased to "have any being". Why? because
"princes" and "the son of man" are helpless (Psalm cxlvi. 3, 4). They return to
their earth; and when they die, their "thoughts perish": and they "know not
anything".
This is what God says about death. He explains it to us Himself. We need
not therefore ask any man what it is. And if we did, his answer would be
valueless, inasmuch as it is absolutely impossible for him to know anything of
death, i.e. the death-state, beyond what God has told us in the Scriptures. We are
obliged to use the word "death" for the state of death, as we have no noun in
English to express the act of dying (as German has in the word "sterbend"). This is
unfortunate, and has been the cause of much error and confusion.
We find the answer is just as clear and decisive in Ps. civ. 29, 30:
"Thou takest away their breath (Heb. spirit), they die, And return to
their dust: Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created: And thou
renewest the face of the earth".
With this agrees Ecc. xii. 7, in which we have a categorical statement as to what
takes place at death:
'Then shall the dust RE-turn to the earth as it was: And the spirit
shall RE-turn unto God who gave it".
The "dust" was, and will again be "dust": but nothing is said in Scripture as to the
spirit apart from the body, either before their union, which made man "a living
soul", or after that union is broken, when man becomes what Scripture calls "a
dead soul".
Where Scripture is silent, we may well be silent too ..."
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