162. II. A State Of Conscious Existence.

II. A State Of Conscious Existence.

1. The Common Christian Faith.—That the intermediate state is one of conscious existence has been the common Christian faith. Exceptions have been so rare that they scarcely require notice. It is difficult to see how there could be any in the case of such as accept the authority of the Scriptures: so clear is their testimony to the truth of such an existence. At the present time, however, some maintain the cessation of our personal existence in the event of death. Many of the advocates of this view are materialists, and maintain their doctrine on materialistic ground. On such ground we are held to be naturally mortal in our whole being; hence an extinction of our personal or conscious life is the immediate consequence of death. It follows that the future life which the Scriptures reveal is the gift of God through Christ. Such it is, not only as a state of blessedness, but also as a conscious existence. But this gift is denied to the wicked; therefore there is for them no future existence. Such as hold the resurrection of the wicked equally deny their immortality. The view is that they are raised up, not for an abiding existence, but for a speedy doom of annihilation. The doctrine is maintained in opposition to the doctrine of future punishment.

We have already shown the falsity of materialism, and therefore need no further refutation of this doctrine, so far as it is based on such ground. And so far as it assumes the support of the Scriptures it is easily refuted by a presentation of texts which clearly mean the consciousness of the soul in the intermediate state.

2. The Clear Sense of Scripture.—We first adduce a few texts from the Old Testament in support of the view here maintained. Here are the words of God to Moses: “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Exodus 3:6). He says, not that I was their God when they were living, nor that I shall be such after their resurrection, but, I am their God. Such, however, he could not be if they were out of conscious existence. An unconscious state in them must have debarred the divine relation which the words mean. This is manifest in our Lord’s comment upon them: “He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living” (Mark 12:27). This clearly means the conscious existence of disembodied spirits. In a season of deep mental perplexity and trouble the Psalmist finds comfort in God: “My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion forever” (Psalms 73:26). Such a faith apprehends no mental extinction in death. “Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it” (Ecclesiastes 12:7). If materialism be true the whole man must perish in death, and there can be no ground for any such distinction between the body and the spirit as this text makes. Nor could it be said that the spirit returns to God in the event of death if its conscious life then perishes. In very bold words Isaiah pictures the downfall and death of Nebuchadnezzar, and his greeting in sheol by the royal tyrants who had fallen and gone down thither before him (Isaiah 14:9-12). No license of rhetorical figure could allow such picturing by a sacred writer who did not believe in the conscious existence of disembodied spirits. Indeed, if there be not such an existence the whole representation was false to the truth, and gave support to the popular faith which was false.

“And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul” (Matthew 10:28). But if there is no conscious existence in the disembodied state, to kill the body is to kill the soul also. Yet while man can kill the body he is powerless to kill the soul. The appearance of Moses and Elias in the scene of the transfiguration is conclusive of the conscious state of the dead (Matthew 17:3). On the denial of such a state there is no interpretation of the words of our Lord to the Sadducees (Mark 12:24-27). The parable of the rich man and Lazarus means the conscious existence of disembodied spirits (Luke 16:19-23). Such, too, is the meaning of the words of our Lord to the dying thief: “To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). When dying Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit” (Acts 7:59), it was in no thought of an immediate state of extinction, but in the full assurance of an immediate entrance into a happy life. In the view of Paul, to be absent from the body, as in the state of death, is to be present with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:6-8). But to be thus present with the Lord is certainly to be in a conscious state: “For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better” (Php 1:23). But Paul could not think an unconscious state better than the present life in the service of Christ; hence he must have thought the intermediate state to be one of conscious existence. “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth” (Revelation 14:13); that is, from the time of their death. This is the truth of a conscious state of disembodied spirits.

3. Review of Objections.—One objection is based on texts which set forth death as the termination of all mental activity or knowledge. There are texts according to which the dead know not any thing; the same thing befalleth man and beast; as the one dieth, so dieth the other; so that man hath no pre-eminence above a beast (Job 14:10; Psalms 49:12; Ecclesiastes 3:18-21). Such texts are easily and properly interpreted on the ground that they describe the state of the dead simply in its relation to the present life. In this sense there is a complete ending of human life. Any interpretation which renders these texts inconsistent with our personal consciousness in the intermediate state must render them equally inconsistent with any and all future existence. There is no need thus to place them in contradiction to the pervasive sense of the Scriptures.

It is objected that such a conscious state is an impossibility. First of all, this objection is based on the ground of materialism; but, as that ground is false, so far it is nugatory. In another view, much may be said against the possibility of a conscious mental life in a disembodied state, since the present conditions of such a life cannot there exist; but all that can really be meant is, that we are ignorant of the modes of mental activity in that state. In truth, we are equally ignorant of the modes of such activity in the present life. Familiarity with the facts of such activities means nothing as to a knowledge of their modes. Indeed, the idea of the mental life of an unbodied spirit is no more a mystery for our thought than the idea of such a life in an embodied spirit. Hence this objection, which depends wholly upon the limitation of our knowledge, is utterly groundless. No philosophy within our reach can deny the possibility of a conscious life in the intermediate state.

Some who hold the consciousness of the soul in the intermediate state reduce its mental life to very narrow limits, for the reason that it is deprived of the organs of sense-perception, and therefore of all the forms of knowledge thus rendered possible. We have no warrant for the assumption of such limitation, because we know nothing of the capabilities, certainly nothing against the large capabilities, of knowledge in an unbodied spirit. The angels are without corporeity; yet we do not think of them as limited to a very narrow mental life. Indeed, theirs is a very large mental life. No doubt such is the possibility, and such the actuality, of the life of the soul in the intermediate state.