02.37. Death and the State of the Soul After Death

Chapter 37 Death and the State of the Soul After Death 1. What department of theology are we now entering, and what subjects are embraced in it ? The department of ESCHATOLOGY or the discussion of last things τα εσχατα. It embraces the subjects of death, the state of the soul after death, the second advent of Christ, the resurrection of the dead, the final judgment, the end of the world, heaven and hell.

2. By what forms of expression is death described in the Bible ? A departure out of this world.––2 Timothy 4:6. A going the way of all the earth.––Joshua 23:14. A being gathered to one’s fathers, Judges 2:10; and to one’s people, Deuteronomy 32:50. A dissolving the earthly house of this tabernacle.––2 Corinthians 5:1. A returning to the dust.––Ecclesiastes 12:7. A sleep.––John 11:11. A giving up the ghost.––Acts 5:10. A being absent from the body and present with the Lord.––2 Corinthians 5:8. Sleeping in Jesus.––1 Thessalonians 4:14.

3. What is death ? The suspension of the personal union between the body and the soul, followed by the resolution of the body into its chemical elements, and the introduction of the soul into that separate state of existence which may be assigned to it by its Creator and Judge.––Ecclesiastes 12:7.

4. How does death stand related to sin ? The entire penalty of the law, including all the spiritual, physical, and eternal penal consequences of sin, is called death in Scripture. The sentence was, “The day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”––Genesis 2:17; Romans 5:12. That this included natural death is proved by Romans 5:13-14; and from the fact that when Christ bore the penalty of the law it was necessary for him to die.—Hebrews 9:22.

5. Why do the justified die ?

Justification changes the entire federal relation of its subject to the law, and raises him forever above all the penal consequences of sin. Death, therefore, while remaining a part of the penalty of the unsatisfied law in relation to the unjust, is like all other afflictions changed, in relation to the justified, into an element of improving discipline. It is made necessary for them from the present constitution of the body, while it is to both body and soul the gateway of heaven. They are made free from its sting and fear.––1 Corinthians 15:55, 1 Corinthians 15:57; Hebrews 2:15. They are now “blessed” in death because they die “in the Lord,”Revelation 14:13, and they shall at last be completely delivered from its power when the last enemy shall be destroyed. 1 Corinthians 15:26.

6. What evidence have we of the immateriality of the soul, and what argument may be derived from that source in proof of its continued existence after death ? For the evidence establishing the immateriality of the soul see Chap. 2., Question 18.

Now although the continued existence of any creature must depend simply upon the will of its Creator, that will may either be made known by direct revelation, or inferred in any particular instance by analogical reasoning from what is known of his doings in other cases. As far as this argument from analogy goes it decidedly confirms the belief that a spiritual substance is, as such, immortal. The entire range of human experience fails to make us acquainted with a single instance of the annihilation of an atom of matter, i. e., of matter as such. Material bodies, organized or chemically compounded, or mere mechanical aggregations, we observe constantly coming into existence, an in turn passing away, yet never through the annihilation of their elementary constituents or component parts, but simply from the dissolution of that relation which these parts had temporarily sustained to each other. Spirit, however, is essentially simple and single, and therefore incapable of that dissolution of parts to which material bodies are subject. We infer, therefore, that spirits are immortal since they can not be subject to that only form of death of which we have any knowledge.

7. What argument in favor of the immortality of the soul may lie derived from its imperfect development in this world ? In every department of organized life every individual creature, in its normal state, tends to grow toward a condition of complete development, which is the perfection of its kind. The acorn both prophesies and grows toward the oak. Every human being, however, is conscious that in this life he never attains that completeness which the Creator contemplated in the ideal of his type; he has faculties undeveloped, capacities unfulfilled, natural desires unsatisfied; he knows he was designed to be much more than he is, and to fill a much higher sphere. As the prophetic reason of the Creator makes provision for the butterfly through the instinct of the caterpillar, so the same Creator reveals the immortal existence of the soul in a higher sphere bar means of its conscious limitations and instinctive movements in this.

8. What argument on this subject may be derived from the distributive justice of God ?

It is an invariable judgment of natural reason, and a fundamental doctrine of the Bible, that moral good is associated with happiness, and moral evil with misery, by the unchangeable nature and purpose of God. But the history of all individuals and communities alike establishes the fact that this life is not a state of retribution; that here wickedness is often associated with prosperity, and moral excellence with sorrow; we must hence conclude that there is a future state in which all that appears at present inconsistent with the justice of God shall be adjusted.—See Psalms 73:1-28 :

9. How do the operations of conscience point to a future state?

Conscience is the voice of God in the soul, which witnesses to our sinfulness and ill–desert, and to his essential justice. Except in the case of those who have found refuge in the righteousness of Christ, every man feels that his moral relations to God are never settled in this life, and hence the characteristic testimony of the human conscience, in spite of great individual differences as to light, sensibility, etc., has always been coincident with the word of God, that “after death comes the JUDGMENT.”

10. How is this doctrine established by the general consent of mankind ? This has been the universal faith of all men, of all races, and in all ages. Universal consent, like every universal effect, must be referred to an equally universal cause, and this consent, uniform among men differing in every other possible respect, can be referred to no common origin other than the constitution of man’s common nature, which is the testimony of his Maker.

11. Show that the Old Testament teaches the same distinction between soul and body that is taught in the New Testament.

1st. In the account of the creation. The body was formed of the dust of the earth, and the soul in the image of the Almighty.––Genesis 1:26; Genesis 2:7.

2nd. In the definition of death.––Ecclesiastes 12:7. “Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return to God who gave it.”––see also Ecclesiastes 3:21.

12. What does the Old Testament teach concerning Sheol ? and how is it shown, from the usage of that word, that the immortality of the soul was a doctrine of the ancient covenant?

Sheol is derived from the verb שָׁאַל to ask, expressing the sense of our English proverb, that the “grave crieth give, give.” It is used in the Old Testament to signify, in a vague and general sense, the state of the departed, both the good and bad, intermediate between death and the resurrection of the righteous (Hosea 13:14), generally invested with gloomy associations, and indefinitely referred to the lower parts of the earth. Deuteronomy 32:22; Amos 9:2. Thus it is used for grave as the receptacle of the body after death (Genesis 37:35; Job 14:13), but principally to designate the receptacle of departed spirits, without explicit reference to any division between the stations allotted to the righteous and the wicked. That they were active and conscious in this state appears to be indicated by what is revealed of Samuel.––1 Samuel 28:7-20; Isaiah 14:15-17. With regard to the good, however, the residence in Sheol was looked upon only as intermediate between death and a happy resurrection.––Psalms 49:15. In their treatment of this whole subject, the Old Testament scriptures rather take the continued existence of the soul for granted, than explicitly assert it.––Fairbairn’s “Herm. Manual”; “Josephus, Ant.,” 18, 1.

13. What is the purport of our Saviour’s argument on this subject against the Sadducees?

Luke 20:37-38. Long after the death of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Jehovah designated himself to Moses as their God. Exodus 3:6. But, argues Christ against the Sadducee who denied the resurrection of the dead, “he is the God, not of the dead, but of the living.” This more immediately proves the immortality of their souls, but as God is the covenant God of persons, and as the persons of these patriarchs included alike body and soul, this argument likewise establishes the ultimate immortality of the body also, i. e., of the entire person.

14. What passages of the Old Testament assert or imply the hope of a state of blessedness after death?

Numbers 23:10; Job 19:26-27; Psalms 16:9-11; Psalms 17:15; Psalms 49:14-15; Psalms 73:24-26; Is. 25:8; 26:19; Hosea 13:14; Daniel 12:2-3; Daniel 12:13.

15. What other evidence does the Old Testament afford of the continued existence of the soul ?

1st. The translations of Enoch and Elijah and the temporary reappearance of Samuel.––Genesis 5:24; Hebrews 11:5; 2 Kings 2:11; 1 Samuel 28:7-20.

2nd. The command to abstain from the arts of necromancy implies the prevalent existence of a belief that the dead still continue in being in another state.––Deuteronomy 18:11-12.

3rd. In their symbolical system Canaan represents the permanent inheritance of Christ’s people, and the entire purpose of the whole Old Testament revelation, as apprehended by Old Testament believers, had respect to a future existence and inheritance after death. This is directly asserted in the New Testament.––Acts 26:6-8; Hebrews 11:10-16; Ephesians 1:14.

16. What does the New Testament teach of the state of the soul immediately after death ?

“The souls of the righteous, being made perfect in holiness, are received into the highest heavens, where they behold the face of God in light and glory, waiting for the full redemption of their bodies.”––Luke 23:43; 2 Corinthians 5:6; 2 Corinthians 5:8; Php 1:23-24. “And the souls of the wicked are cast into hell, where they remain in torment and utter darkness, reserved to the judgment of the great day.”––Luke 16:23-24; Jude 1:6-7. “Confession of Faith,” Chap. 32., §1. This statement represents the doctrine of the Lutheran and Reformed churches.

It includes the following points:

1st. The state of souls between death and the resurrection may properly be called intermediate when viewed with relation to the states which precede and follow.

2nd. Whether there be also an intermediate place or not the Scriptures do not definitely declare, but they suggest it.—See below, Ch. 40., Ques. 3.

3rd. The souls both of the righteous and the lost continue during this state active and conscious.

4th. The moral and spiritual character and destiny of each is irrevocably decided at death either for good or evil 5th. The righteous are immediately made perfect in holiness.

6th. They pass at once and remain during the whole period in the presence of Christ.

7th. This intermediate differs from the final state of the redeemed––

(1.) Because of the absence of the body.

(2.) Because redemption is not yet realized in its final stage.

17. What is the signification and usage of the wordαιδης , Hades, in Scripture?

“Αιδης , from α primitive, and ιδειν,” designates generally the invisible world inhabited by the spirits of dead men. Among the ancient classical heathen, this invisible world was regarded as consisting of two contrasted regions, the one called Elysium, the abode of the blessed good, and the other Tartarus, the abode of the vicious and miserable.

It was used by the authors of the Septuagint to translate the Hebrew word Sheol, compare Acts 2:27, and Psalms 16:10. In the New Testament this word occurs only eleven times. Matthew 11:23; Matthew 16:18; Luke 10:15; Luke 16:23; Acts 2:27; Acts 2:31; 1 Corinthians 15:55; Revelation 1:18; Revelation 6:8; Revelation 20:13-14. In every case, except 1 Corinthians 15:55, where the more critical editions of the original substitute the word θανετε in the place of αδη hades is translated hell, and certainly always represents the invisible world as under the dominion of Satan, as opposed to the kingdom of Christ, and as finally subdued under his victorious power. See Fairbairn’s “Herm. Manual.”

18. What is the signification and usage of the wordsπαραδεισος andγεεννα ?

Παραδεισος Paradise, derived from some oriental language, and adopted into both the Hebrew and Greek languages, signifies parks, pleasure gardens.––Nehemiah 2:8; Ecclesiastes 2:5. The Septuagint translators use this word to represent the garden of Eden.––Genesis 2:8, etc. It occurs only three times in the New Testament, Luke 23:43; 2 Corinthians 12:4; Revelation 2:7; where the context proves that it refers to the “third heavens,” the garden of the Lord, in which grows the “tree of life,” which is by the river which flows out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. Revelation 22:1-2.

Γεεννα is a compound Hebrew word expressed in Greek letters, signifying “Valley of Hinnom, Joshua 15:8, skirting Jerusalem on the south, running westward from the valley of Jehosaphat, under Mount Zion. Here was established the idolatrous worship of Moloch, to whom infants were burned in sacrifice.––1 Kings 11:7. This worship was broken up and the place desecrated by Josiah, 2 Kings 23:10-14, after which it appears to have become the receptacle for all the filth of the city, and of the dead bodies of animals, and of malefactors, to consume which fires would appear to have been from time to time kept up, hence called Tophet, an abomination, a vomit, Jeremiah 7:31.” Robinson’s “Greek Lex.” By a natural figure, therefore, this word was used to designate the place of final punishment, forcibly carrying with it the idea of pollution and misery. It occurs twelve times in the New Testament, and always to signify the place of final torment.––Matthew 5:22; Matthew 5:29-30; Matthew 10:28; Matthew 18:9; Matthew 23:15; Matthew 23:33; Mark 9:43; Mark 9:47; Luke 12:5; James 3:6.

19. What various views are maintained as to the intermediate state of the souls of men between death and the judgment ?

1st. Many Protestants, especially of the Church of England, retaining the classical sense of the word Hades, as equivalent to the Jewish Sheol (as given above, Question 12), hold that there is an intermediate region, consisting of two distinct departments, in one or other of which the disembodied souls, both of the lost and of the redeemed, respectively await the resurrection of their bodies, the award of judgment, and their translation to their final abodes of bliss or misery. They differ from the common Protestant doctrine chiefly––

(1.) In positively asserting that the place as well as the state is intermediate.

(2.) In asserting that it is situated “under” in respect to this world.

(3.) In holding that it is not the “highest heavens” where God manifests his special presence, and where Christ habitually abides.––See the Rev. E. H. Bickersteth’s “Yesterday, To–day, and Forever,” and “Hades and Heaven, or State of the Blessed Dead.”

2nd. For the complete statement of the doctrine of the Romanists, see below, Question 22.

3rd. Materialists and some Socinians hold that the souls of men remain in a state of unconsciousness or suspended life from death until the moment of the resurrection. This opinion is also held by the advocates of the ultimate annihilation of the wicked, and advocated most ably by C. F. Hudson in America, and as probable by the late Archbishop Whately in England (“View of Sc. Concerning a Future State”). The arguments are––

(1.) We have no experience and can form no conception of conscious mental activity in a disembodied state.

(2.) That the Scriptural evidence relied upon for the support of the church doctrine is obscure and inconclusive.

(3.) That the original and simple meaning of the word death is “extinction of being.” God said to Adam “The day thou eatest thereof thou,” not thy body, but thyself, “shall surely die.”Matthew 10:28.

(4.) That the great prominence afforded in the New Testament to the future resurrection of the body, as the effect of redemption, and the object of Christian hope, proves that the only future life the apostles expected was subsequent to and dependent upon that event.––1 Corinthians 15:14.

(5.) They quote many passages to prove that the Scriptures teach that the dead remain at present in a state of bodily and spiritual inactivity.–Psalms 6:5. “For in death there is no remembrance of thee, in the grave who shall give thee thanks.”–Psalms 146:4; Jeremiah 51:57. This doctrine was first taught by certain heretics in Arabia in the time of Origen, called Thnetopsychites. It was revived as an opinion of some theologians in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, but condemned by the University of Paris, 1240, and by Pope Benedict XII., 1366. It was revived by some Anabaptist and refuted by Calvin in his “Psychopannychia, etc.” It has never been held by any church or permanent school of theologians.

Isaac Taylor, in his “Physical Theory of Another Life,” ch. 17, concludes, purely on Biblical grounds, that the intermediate state of redeemed souls is one “not of unconsciousness indeed, but of comparative inaction, or of suspended energy. A transition state during the continuance of which the passive faculties of our nature rather than the active are to awake.”

20. State the Scriptural grounds upon which the Protestant doctrine stated above, Ques. 16, rests.

1st. The reappearance of Samuel in the use of all his faculties.2 Samuel 2:7-20. The appearance of Moses and Elias at the transfiguration of Christ on the mount.––Matthew 17:3. Christ’s address to the thief upon the cross.–Luke 23:43. The parable of the rich man and Lazarus.––Luke 16:23-24. The prayer of dying Stephen.––Acts 7:59. In 2 Corinthians 5:1-8 Paul declares that to be at home in the body is to be absent from the Lord, and to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord, and hence he says (Php 1:21-24) that for him to die is gain, and that he was in a strait betwixt two, “having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better, nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you.” He declares (1 Thessalonians 5:10) that the sleep of death is a living together with Christ.–See also Ephesians 3:15; Hebrews 6:12-20; Acts 1:25; Jude 1:6-7; Hebrews 12:23; Revelation 5:9; Revelation 6:9-11; Revelation 7:9; Revelation 14:1; Revelation 14:3.

21. How can it be shown that the Intermediate State does not afford a further probation for those who depart from this life out of Christ ? An opinion is becoming prevalent among some classes of Protestants that another opportunity for repentance and faith will be afforded to Christless souls between death and the resurrection. That this is unfounded appears––

1st. From the fact that it is nowhere taught in Scripture. It is a hope at best suggested by the wish, but without any foundation in the word of God. Even if the “preaching to the spirits in prison” (1 Peter 3:19) is rightly referred to Christ’s personal ministry in the sphere of the intermediate state, it certainly did not apply to those who had rejected him on earth, and it would, in that case, probably apply only to true believers under the Old Testament Dispensation, as the Catholic Church has always taught.

2nd. The assumption is built upon the grossly unchristian principle that God owes to all men a favorable opportunity of knowing and of receiving Christ. If this were true the gospel would be of debt and not of GRACE.

3rd. All the teaching of Christ and his apostles implies the contrary. “It is appointed unto men once to die, but alter this the judgment.”–Hebrews 9:27. “I go my way, and ye shall seek me, and shall die in your sins; whither I go ye can not come.”––John 8:21. “And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that they which would pass from hence to you, can not, neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.”––Luke 16:26; Revelation 22:11.

4th. The law of habit, and of confirmed moral character would, of course, even if conditions of repentance were offered, render the moral state of the sinner far more obdurate and hopeless in the intermediate state, than it was during the earthly life. the “Hope,” is as much unwarranted by reason as it is by revelation.

22. What do Romanists teach with regard to the soul of men after death?

1st. That the souls of unbaptized infants go to a place prepared expressly for them, called the “limbus infantum(borderland of infants),” where they endure no positive suffering, although they do not enjoy the vision of God. This is placed in a higher part of the Infernus which the fires can not reach, and they suffer only a poenam damni(penalty of loss), and have no share in the poenam sensus(penalty of actual suffering), which afflicts adult sinners.

2nd. That all unbaptized adults, and all those who subsequently have lost the grace of baptism by mortal sin, and die unreconciled to the church, go immediately to hell.

3rd. That those believers who have attained to state of Christian perfection go immediately to heaven.

4th. That the great mass of partially sanctified Christians dying in fellowship with the church, yet still encumbered with imperfections, go to purgatory, where they suffer, more or less intensely, for a longer or shorter period, until their sins are both atoned for and purged out, when they are translated to heaven, during which intermediate period they may be efficiently assisted by the prayers and labors of their friends on earth.

5th. That Old Testament believers were gathered into a region called “limbus patrum(borderland of patriarchs)” called “Abraham’s bosom,” where they remained without the beatific vision of God, yet without suffering, until Christ, during the three days in which his body lay in the grave, came and released them.––1 Peter 3:19-20. Cat. Rom. Part L, Chapter 6., Question 3; “Council of Trent,” Sess. 25., de Purgatorio. As to purgatory the Council of Trent settled only two points, 1st, that there is a purgatory;

2nd, that souls therein may be benefited by the prayers and mass of the church on earth.

It is generally held, however, that its pains are both negative and positive. That the instrument of its sufferings is material fire. That these are dreadful and indefinite in extent. That satisfaction may be rendered in this world on much easier terms. That while there their souls can neither incur guilt nor merit any thing, they can alone render satisfaction for their sins by means of passive sufferings.

They confess that this doctrine is not taught directly in Scripture, but maintain, 1st, that it follows necessarily from their general doctrine of the satisfaction for sins;

2nd, that Christ and the apostles taught it incidentally as they did infant baptism, etc. They refer to Matthew 12:32; 1 Corinthians 3:15.

23. How may the Anti–Christian character of this doctrine be shown ?

1st. It confessedly has no direct, and obviously no real foundation in Scripture. This consideration alone suffices.

2nd. It proceeds upon an entirely unchristian view of the method of satisfying divine justice for sins.

(1.) That while Christ’s merits are infinite, they atone only for original sins.

(2.) That each believer must make satisfaction in his own person for sins which he commits after baptism, either in the pains of penance or of purgatory. This is contrary to all the Scriptures teach, as we have above shown under their respective heads, (1) as to the satisfaction rendered to justice by Christ; (2) the nature of justification; (3) nature of sin; (4) relation of the sufferings and good works of the justified man to the law; (5) state of the souls of believers after death, etc., etc.

3rd. It is a heathen doctrine derived from the Egyptians through the Greeks and Romans, and currently received through the Roman empire.––Virgil’s “Eneid,” 6. 739, 43.

4th. Its practical effects have always been, 1st, the abject subjection of the people to the priesthood;

2nd, the gross demoralization of the people. The church is the self–appointed depository and dispenser of the superabundant merits of Christ, and the supererogatory merits of her eminent saints. On this foundation she dispenses the pains of purgatory to those who pay for past sins, or sells indulgences to those who pay for the liberty to sin in the future. Thus the people sin and pay, and the priest takes the money and remits the penalty. The figment of a purgatory under the control of the priest is the main source of his hold upon the fears of the people.––See Ch. 32., Q. 19 AUTHORITATIVE STATEMENTS OF CHURCH DOCTRINE.

ROMISH DOCTRINE.

“Cat. of Conc. Trident,” Pt. 1, ch. 6, 3.—“There is also the fire of purgatory, in which the souls of the just are purified by punishment for a stated time, to the end that they may be admitted into their eternal country, into which nothing that defileth entereth. And of the truth of this doctrine which holy Councils declare to be confirmed by the testimonies of Scripture and by apostolic tradition, the pastor will have occasion to treat more diligently and frequently, as we are fallen on times when men endure not sound doctrine.”

Bellarmin, “Purgator,” 2. 10.—“It is certain that in purgatory, as there is also in hell, there is punishment by fire, whether that fire is understood literally or metaphorically.” His own opinion is that it is corporeal fire.

DOCTRINE OF THE GREEK CHURCH.–“The Longer Catechism of the Orthodox Catholic, Eastern Church,” now the most authoritative standard of The Orthodox Graeco–Russian Church. On the 11th Article, Ques. 372–377.–“From death till the general resurrection the souls of the righteous are in light and rest, with a foretaste of eternal happiness; but the souls of the wicked are in a state the reverse of this. We know this because it is ordained that the perfect retribution according to works shall be received by the perfect man after the resurrection of the body and God’s last judgment.—2 Timothy 2:8 and 2 Corinthians 5:10. But that they have a foretaste of bliss is shown on the testimony of Jesus Christ, who says in the parable that the righteous Lazarus was immediately after death carried into Abraham’s bosom.—Luke 16:22; Php 1:23. But we remark of such souls as have departed with faith, but without having had time to bring forth fruits worthy of repentance, that they may be aided towards the attainment of a blessed resurrection by prayers offered in their behalf, especially such as are offered in union with the oblation of the bloodless sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ, and by works of mercy done in faith for their memory.”

PROTESTANT DOCTRINE

“Articles of Smalcald” (Lutheran), p. 307.—“Purgatory, and whatever of religions rites, worship, or business pertains to it, is a mere disguise of the Devil.”

“Thirty–nine Articles of the Church of England,” Art. 22.—“The Romish doctrine concerning purgatory, pardons, worshipping and adoration as well as of images as of relics, and also invocation of saints, is a fond thing, vainly invented, and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture, but rather repugnant to the word of God.”

“Shorter Catechism of West. Assembly,” Ques. 37.—“The souls of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness and do immediately pass into glory; and their bodies being still united to Christ, do rest in their graves till the resurrection.”