00A.18 CHAPTER XV.—Where Are the Dead?

CHAPTER XV WHERE ARE THE DEAD? The subject for our sermon this evening is, “Where are the dead between death and the judgment?” Do they sleep in an unconscious state or do they go to an inter-mediate state or do they go immediately to their eternal destiny? Each of these three questions is held by some people to be the teaching of the Scriptures. We shall consider the three and determine, if we can, what the word of the Lord teaches upon this question.

We are all interested in any question that relates to the future life. We would like to know, if possible, where we go immediately after death, and we would like to know whether our friends wfio have crossed the river are conscious, and if so, do they know what we are doing and how we grieve for their departure. Some of these questions we can not answer, There is nothing revealed that will satisfy all the longings that we have in reference to these things. I think, however, that this is a gracious provision of our Father. It would not be a comfortable thought to believe that our departed loved ones are always near us and always taking cognizance of the things that we are doing and thinking. Further-more, I believe that the Lord wishes us to live in only one world at a time. It would probably disqualify us for the practical things of this life if he allowed us to dwell to too great an extent upon the things of another life; upon the things of the Spirit world. For this reason, our Father has closed the door and shut out from us some of the things that we would like to know.

We read in the Bible the story of a man who had died and who remained in the grave until the fourth day. Then our Savior spoke the word that restored life to his putrefying body and he again lived and walked among men. He was naturally an object of great interest to the people of that day. They came as far to see him as they did to see our Lord who had raised him from the dead. And so great was the interest aroused by him that the enemies of our Lord suggested that he should be put out of the way, for he was a living argument in favor of the divine power of the Savior. Do you not imagine that those pe.ople who came to see Lazarus and crowded around him with such interest asked him questions in reference to where he was while he was dead; and what he saw, and what he heard? There is not the slightest intimation in the Scripture that such questions were put to him, yet I know they were., and I base this statement upon human nature, I would have asked him such questions if I had been there. You would have done the same thing. Then why may we not assume that those people who were interested in him in the same way that we would have been asked him the same questions? But did he answer their questions? If so, why did not the writers of the gospels record those answers, and give us the benefit of them as well as the people living at that time? Not only did these strangers and friends ask such questions of Lazarus, but I can imagine that when he was alone in the quiet little home at Bethany that Martha and Mary put these questions to him. Can’t you hear them saying, “Brother, where were you after you left us? Did you know how we grieved for you? Did you see the funeral and know how that all our friends had come to sympathize with us? What did you know, brother ? How’ did you feel ? What did you see ? Where did you go? Tell us all about it.” Surely these sisters asked such questions of their brother. Yet, there is no mention of it in the Scriptures; and, of course, therefore, no answers made to such questions. Why is it that the answers to these questions are not recorded, since we know that such questions must have been asked? My conclusion is that he did not answer these questions; and the reason he did not answer them was he could not. I have an idea that the curtain upon the scene and all that had taken place faded out of the memory of Lazarus when he came back into his body. I base this upon Paul’s statement that when he was caught up into the third heaven he heard things that were unlawful to be uttered. If it was unlawful for Paul to utter the things that he heard in the spirit world, it must also have been unlawful for Lazarus to reveal what he heard and saw while he was out of the body. If then it is the Father’s will to keep some of these things from us, we must be satisfied and as in all other things, say “Thy will be done”. But, if there is anything revealed upon the question, it is ours and we have a right to know it and to enjoy whatever blessing such information may give to us. We will, therefore, enter into a study of this question tonight and see what we can learn.

Then, where are the dead ? One man answers: They are not: they have ceased to be, for man is wholly mortal and at death he ceases to be a conscious entity. This is said not by unbelievers only, but there are religious people who hold this view. They claim that there will be a resurrection, which according to their theory, would have to be a re-creation, when all the dead will be brought back into life again and then the righteous will be given immortality, but the wicked will be annihilated, according to the theory. If this theory is correct, then any further discussion of our question is unnecessary. The answer to “Where are the dead” is already given. They are non-est. But I do not believe this theory. I believe that man possesses an element in his nature which we call soul that may live independent of the physical organism. At death, the soul, or spirit, departs from the body in consequence of which the body decays but the spirit lives on. Those who hold to the No-Soul doctrine, make a play upon the word death. They say that if the spirit lives after death, then the person is not dead. But they put an arbitrary meaning upon the word death. They think it means extinction, but this is not the meaning of the word, either according to the Scriptures or according to the lexicons. The word, death means a separation and the end of a state or condition. One may, therefore, be dead in one sense and alive in another. When one state or condition comes to an end, that is a death. The Apostle Paul says in the seventh chapter of Romans: For I was alive without the law once; but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. That does not mean that he became extinct, or ceased to be, but it means that he ceased to be ignorant of sin. He had not formerly known sin, but the law revealed the fact that he was a sinner. Then he was no longer in blindness. Again the Apostle Paul says to the Colossians:

Ye are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God.

Here were people who were living, active Christians, and yet Paul says that they were dead. That does not mean that they had no existence. It means that they were dead to the world and to the things that are sinful, but they were alive unto God. Again the Apostle Paul says in 1 Timothy 5:6, concerning a young widow, who loves pleasure and therefore deserts the Lord, that “she is dead while she liveth”. So we have a person living and dead at the same time. Living in one sense and dead in another. In this case she was dead unto God and alive unto sin. Now when physical death comes, it simply means that the spirit departs from the body and that our earthly existence is at an end. No longer is there life in the flesh. A few passages of Scripture will prove beyond a doubt that this is correct. Before we cite these passages, it would be well to consider the meaning of the word “soul”. The soul-sleepers, or annihilationists claim that the soul dies and they quote such Scriptures as, The soul that sinneth, it shall die. But this is a different use of the word “soul”. Here it simply means individuals. The person that sins shall die, not any one else for him, but he for himself. The father shall not bear the iniquity1 for the son, or the son the iniquity for the father, but the soul that sinneth, it shall die. Many times in the Bible the word soul is used in that way. We read that eight souls were saved in the ark, meaning eigiht individuals. We read of three score and fifteen souls, meaning, of course, three score and fifteen persons. The word that is used in the Scripture to designate the immortal part of man is not “soul” but “spirit”. The word “soul” is sometimes used to designate the immortal part of man, but not nearly so often as the word “spirit”. But whichever word is used, we shall find that there is beyond question such a thing as a man’s living apart from his body. The first reference that we suggest in proof of this is Genesis 35:18. Here we have the story of the death of Rachael and the birth of Benjamin, and we read, And it came to pass, as her soul was departing (for she died), that she called his name Benoni; but his father called him Benjamin. Her death simply means a departing of the spirit. Her spirit was departing and the writer threw into parenthesis the statement that she died. Again we read in the seventeenth chapter of the Book of Kings of the death of the widow’s son and of the restoration to life of that son by the prophet of God. The record says that Elijah stretched himself upon the corpse and prayed, O Lord, my God, I pray thee, let this child’s soul come into him”, and the soul did come into him and he revived. This shows clearly that the soul had departed and consequently the body was lifeless. The soul returned and again the boy lived in the body. In the twelfth chapter of Ecclesiastes, we have a picture of old age and death. And in Ecclesiastes 12:7, the wise man says, And the dust shall return as it was, but the spirit unto God who gave it.

Here the body, that which was made out of dust, returns to the dust, but the spirit which did not come from dust, but came from God, goes back to God.

Then when we come into the New Testament, we read the same expressions. In Luke 23:43, Jesus said to the penitent thief, Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.

Jesus and the thief both died that day and their mutilated bodies were taken down from the cross, but according to the statement of our Lord, they were both in some place together called paradise. Then, in Luke 23:46, Jesus cried with a loud voice and said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.

Then he gave up the ghost and his body was lifeless.

There was something in Jesus that departed and went into the hands of the Father, while his body was given into the hands of friends who buried if in the tomb. In the seventh chapter of Acts, we have the story of the death of Stephen, and as Stephen died, he cried, Lord, Jesus, receive my spirit. His spirit was being forced from the body by the cruel stones hurled upon him by the mob, but that spirit went into the hands of Jesus while his body was left mangled in the dust of the earth.

Again in the fourth chapter of Second Corinthians Paul said, Though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is renewed day by day.

Here man is looked upon as having two sides to his nature, and while one is going down, so to speak, the other is going up. One is failing, the other is taking on new life and strength. Then continuing this thought into the next chapter, For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heaven.

So, the apostle considers the body a house and says, though this house tumbles down and is dissolved, we have another house. That shows that the real living, thinking being, is not dependent upon the house in which it lives. It can change houses. Then he says, For to be at home in the body is to be absent from the Lord and to be absent from the body is to be at home with the Lord. This shows that the house which he is discussing means the body, and it also shows beyond any doubt that according to Paul’s teaching, one may be absent from one’s body and still be a living, conscious entity and even be at home with the Lord. How can a man who says that man is wholly mortal believe this passage of Scripture, and what can he do with it? I have discussed this question with some intelligent men, but I have never yet found one who could do anything with this passage of Scripture worthy of an intelligent man. They can make play upon the metaphor, but they can not answer the reasoning. Then, again in the first chapter of Philip- p:ans, Paul said he was in a strait betwixt two, not knowing whether to depart to be with the Lord or to remain and be with Christians on this earth. He said, To die is gain, but to live is Christ

So, Paul considers death a departing from something and a going to join something else. Departing from the earth, from his friends on the earth, from his body, and a joining of the Lord somewhere in the spirit realm.

One more passage of Scripture: In Hebrews 12:9, the Apostle Paul says:

Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence; shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?

Here the apostle clearly divides the human being into flesh and spirit and declares that the flesh came from one source and the spirit came from another. Flesh came from our earthly parents by fleshly birth, and the spirit came from God, the Father of spirits. This surely proves to the satisfaction of any one who will believe the Scriptures that there is spirit in man that may depart from the body and live on even after the body has decayed. If some one asks where this spirit comes from and when it enters into the body, we answer simply that it is stated in the first verse of the twelfth chapter of Zachariah, that the Lord formeth the spirit in man. Now when this is done, that is, whether at birth or how long before birth, we do not know, nor does it matter. Then, if the spirit lives after death, we are ready to ask the question again, Where does the spirit go when one dies?

One man answers that it goes immediately to its eternal destiny. If it is a righteous spirit, it goes immediately to heaven, and if -t is a wicked spirit, it goes immediately to Gehenna. I do not believe this, however, I believe the Scriptures teach that the spirit goes into an intermediate state and remains there until the judgment. The first argument that I offer in support of this is the fact that there is to be a great general judgment day, when all men shall be judged, and shall be given their rewards. If people are judged at death, there would be no need for such a final judgment. But is there to be such a judgment? Yes, indeed. The Scriptures are very emphatic upon this point, and it is even one of the first principles of the Gospel of Christ. It is sometimes stated that our fathers put too much emphasis upon the day of judgment, and upon the state of the wicked after judgment I do not know whether this is true or not. 1 do not know whether it is possible for a man to put too much emphasis upon these things or not, but if our fathers did swing to an extreme in that direction, we have certainly swung to an opposite extreme, for we say so little about it these days that the people in general seem to have lost the idea that there is to be such a thing as a judgment. The Bible still teaches, however, that that day is coming. In John 16:8, Jesus said: And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment. And when Paul reasoned before the wicked Felix and Drucilla, he reasoned of righteousness, temperance and judgment to come. And when he stood in the great city of Athens, Greece, preaching to those heathen philosophers th^t the time when man thought that the God head was made of gold and of silver had now passed, and that God had appointed a day in which he would judge the world by that man whom he raised from the dead. In enumerating the first principles of the Gospel of Christ, in the sixth chapter of Hebrews, the Apostle Paul refers to eternal judgment. Oh, yes, there is such a thing as a Great Day coining, for God has appointed a day in which he will judge the world.

Just as stated in Matthew 25, that when the Son of man shall sit upon the throne of his glory, And before him shall be gathered all nations; and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from his goats. But some one is ready to say that this simply means that the Lord will gather the nations living at the time of his coming and will separate them; that it does not therefore prove that those who have died were not judged at death. But in the twelfth chapter of Matthew Jesus said: The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it; because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold a greater than Jonah is here, The men of Nineveh had lived five hundred years or more before that generation, before whom Jonas was speaking, and yet Jesus declared that these two generations would he in the same judgment Again he says: The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it; for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here. The queen of the south had lived a thousand years before that generation, and yet Jesus declared that these two generations shall stand together in the same judgment.

Now, Jesus declared that it would be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for those cities in which he had preached and wrought miracles and which had rejected him. This shows that the generation of people that lived in the days of Jesus will be in the same, judgment with the generations that lived in the time of Sodom and Gomorrah, But we can go farther back than that, for both Peter and Jude declare that the angels which sinned have been cast down into pits of darkness and are held in chains until the judgment of the great day.

Now, you see that there is indeed a great judgment day coming, in which not only all the nations then living shall be judged, but in which all the generations that have lived from the early morning of time down unto the dawning of that day shall likewise be judged. A great day indeed! This being true, we know that men are not judged at death. Peter declared that God knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation, and to reserve the unjust until the day of judgment to be punished. This statement alone puts beyond doubt the question of whether or not the wicked enter into their punishment at death. They do not. They are held until the day of judgment, at which time their punishment shall begin. But some one asks if this is true of the righteous. I think the righteous will also go into an intermediate state and there remain until the day of judgment, at which time they shall be given their crowns.

There are two passages of Scripture which would seem to indicate that the righteous go immediately to their rewards, and if there were not other Scriptures bearing upon the question, I would conclude frim this that the righteous do go to their eternal destiny at death. These two passages have already been recited in this discourse. They are both from Paul. He says, “To be absent from the body, is to be at home with the Lord.” And he said he was going to depart and be with Christ. These expressions seem to teach that at death the righteous person would go into the immediate presence of God, there to abide with him. But I know from other passages of Scripture that they do not mean this. In some sense, of course, the righteous are at home with God and are with Christ, but they do not receive their crowns then, for we shall see that although Paul has been with Christ for nearly two thousand years, he has not yet received his crown. Let us cite a few passages of Scripture upon this point. In the fourteenth chapter of Luke, Jesus said: When you make a feast, do not invite the wealthy, for if you do they will make another feast and invite you in return and you will be repaid. But when you make a feast invite the poor and the halt and the maimed, for they shall not be able to invite you in return, but you shall receive your recompense at the resurrection of the just. This shows that the reward given to the righteous will come at the resurrection of the just. In the fourteenth chapter of John, Jesus said: In my father’s house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am there ye may be also.

Here Jesus shows that the disciples shall be with him where he is when he comes again. He connects his coming with their entrance into the place prepared for them. In Acts 2:32, Peter declares:

David has not yet ascended into heaven.

David was a righteous man and had been dead hundreds of years, but he had not yet ascended into heaven. In Revelation 6:9, John saw the souls of the martyrs under the altar, and he heard them crying:

How long, 0 Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? But the answer came back to them, to wait a little while until their brethren who are upon the earth have sealed their testimony with their blood. This seems to indicate that those who have died in the service of the Lord must wait until all of the Lord’s servants have finished their course and until the Lord’s will has been completely fulfilled and his purposes worked out, and then all of his servants shall be rewarded at the same time. But to settle the matter, the Apostle Paul says in the last chapter of the last book that he ever wrote, just before he was ready to depart and to be with Christ:

I have fought a good fight. I have finished the course. I have kept the faith and henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give to me in that day, and not only unto me, but unto all them also that love his appearing.

Here we see that the crown is laid up; that it will be given unto Paul in that day; and that day, evidently means the time of the coming of the Lord, for he says the crowns shall then be given to all others who love his appearing. These passages of Scripture satisfy me that the dead wait in an inter-mediate state and that they will be given their rewards in that great day that is coming. The next question then is, "Where do the dead go from death to the judgment?” I will now direct your attention to the diagram that is on the board before you. You see this large circle, which is called Sheol or Hades. Sheol is a Hebrew word and Hades is a Greek word. They mean the same thing. Therefore, Hades is the unseen world, or the world of departed spirit.?—the Spirit world. It includes all of the different departments of CHART ON HEAVEN/HELL JUDGMENT/THE DEAD the spirit world. God himself is in Hades, in the sense that he is in a world that is invisible to us—in a world that is not material. Every soul that dies goes into Hades, but the righteous go into one division and the wicked into another. They are all in Hades. Now, sometimes the word “Hades” is used to designate only one division, and again it is used to include all of the divisions or the departments.

You will notice here that the Great Gulf rolls through the center of this circle. Upon one side we have a department called Heaven, and on the same side a department called Paradise. On the other side of the gulf we have two divisions again; one of these divisions I have named Tartarus and the other Gehenna. Now Tartarus is the place where the wicked are held until the day of judgment. This word is found only one time in all the Bible, In the second chapter of Second Peter and in the fourth verse, Peter says that God cast the angels that sinned down to Tartarus.

If you read the King James version, you will notice that it says that he cast these angels down to hell. When I used to read that and notice that they were cast down to hell to await the day of judgment, I wondered what was going to he done with them after the day of judgment. If they were in hell awaiting that day, would God take them out of hell then and save them, or would he take them out and judge them and send them immediately hack to hell. What was the sense of that? That passage puzzled me. But in after years, I read from the Revised translation that God cast them down to hell, but the revisers directed my attention to the margin, and I saw that the word for hell in the Greek is Tartarus. Still I was not relieved, for I had not the slightest idea what the word Tartarus meant. But when in the goodness of God I was permitted to study Greek, the first thing I did when I learned how to use the lexicon was to look up the word Tartarus.

These authorities told me that Tartarus means an abyss, a dungeon, or a prison house. It is not the word that designates the place where the wicked will go after judgment. That word is Gehenna. This may be correctly translated a hell, for that is what it means, hut Tartarus is a prison, Then we have learned that the wicked are held until the day of judgment to be punished. Since Tartarus is the place where these angels are held that are also awaiting the day of judgment, we naturally conclude that this is the same prison house in which all the wicked are held until that day.

Now (indicated by pointer), this division is called Paradise. Jesus and the thief went into a place called Paradise the day they died. But after Jesus was raised from the dead we read in John 20:17, that he said to Mary:

Touch me not, for I have not yet ascended to the Father.

Three days ago he went to Paradise. And presumably he had been in Paradise during the entire three days, but yet he tells Mary that he had not yet ascended to the Father. Therefore, Paradise is not the place where the Father is. But the word Paradise does sometimes designate Heaven. Paul calls the third heaven paradise. But the word “Paradise” is a Persian word. It was not translated into Greek. It was simply trans-literared. Then it was not translated from Greek into English, but . was simply anglicized, In Greek it is Paradise; in English Paradise. So, we really have a Persian word designating this place where the righteous go. The word means a pleasure garden. Therefore, any place of pleasure or a pleasure garden might be called Paradise, and it is correct to speak of Heaven, of course, as Paradise. But because the word paradise is sometimes applied to heaven is no reason that it could never be applied to anything else, or that it always means heaven. Heaven is also called a city, but no one would imagine that every time he sees the word city, that heaven is indicated. It might mean Fort Worth. This great gulf, of course, is taken from the story of the rich man and Lazarus. The great gulf rolled between Lazarus and the rich man. Lazarus was in Abraham’s bosom, which is just simply another way of speaking of the place where the righteous go. It is a figure of speech, designating the place that we have here called Paradise. The rich man was over here in Tartarus. But some one may say that the rich man was being tormented and that he as being tormented by flames.

Yes, the rich man was by no means happy, and I am sure that no one in Tartarus is happy. Of course, the flame is figurative, just as Abraham’s bosom is figurative. The rich man was not in hell; he was in Hades and the division of Hades that he was in must have been Tartarus, because this all happened before the general judgment day, as we know from the fact that the rich man’s brothers were still back on the earth and still had time to escape that terrible place if they would but hear Moses and the prophets. But any way, there was no passing from where the rich man was to where Lazarus was. His opportunities were all gone. His doom was sealed and this is true of every one who is either in Tartarus or Gehenna. From neither of these places, as you will see from the diagram, can a soul pass to either paradise or heaven. But some one will say, “What is the use in having a great judgment day? Have these souls not already been judged, separated, and is not their sentence rre- vocable?” Yes, this is true. Nevertheless, this is the plain teaching of God’s word and why God has arranged it this way we do not know. It is sufficient to us to know that he has done so. I might suggest a reason, however. These souls have truly been separated and they have been sent to a place from which they can not escape. At least, they can not escape into any better place. Their sentence has been pronounced, but they are sent away to await a day of execution, so to speak. Likewise, the righteous know that they are to enter the presence of God; tliat they are to have their crowns, but those crowns are not to be given unto them until the great day, as we have seen.- It may be that their rewards can not be completely reckoned until the end of time. Their works do follow them—both good works and evil works. Paul has been in paradise nearly two thousand years and yet his influence has continued in the earth and has come down through the ages like a breath from heaven blessing untold millions and no doubt saving thousands of souls. It may be that Paul’s reward will be reckoned upon the basis of his influence, and that being true, it can not be determined until his influence has spent its force. This would make necessary the degrees of rewards, and I believe that such a thing is taught in the Scriptures, but I shall not take time now to discuss that point. But one other consideration comes to our attention here. This is the question: “Don’t the Catholics teach this same doctrine?” No, not exactly. They teach that souls go into an intermediate state, but where we have Tartarus on this chart, they put Purgatory. Purgatory, as the word indicates, means a place where souls are cleansed or purged from their sins. The Catholics, therefore, teach that those who go to Purgatory after having been cleansed by purgatorial fires, will be admitted into paradise, or into heaven. Thus, they teach that there is a chance after death for those who die with sin upon their souls. . This is certainly not the teaching of the Scriptures.

Jesus said in John 8:21 :

Except you believe that I am he, you shall die in your sins and where I am you can not come. This shows that those who die in their sins are hopelessly cut off from the presence of God, the Father.

Again Jesus said, in Revelation 2:10 : Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.

Here again the eternal reward is predicated upon the condition at death. But one other passage will settle this forever. In Second Corinthians, fifth chapter and tenth verse, Paul says:

We must be made manifest before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive for the things done in the body according to that which he hath done, whether it be good or bad. This shows that we shall be judged for the tilings done in the body and rewarded accordingly. What the soul may do after it has left the body does not enter into the consideration. It is while we are living in the body that we have our opportunity of making ready for the judgment. It is while we are living here that we must decide where we wish to live throughout eternity. This shows, my friends, that when death comes, your day of probation has ended. Your doom will then be sealed. If you are found in your sins you must go away from the presence of God into the dismal abode of the wicked, and there you must spend the endless ages of eternity. Then, my friends, while you are living in this world, while you have the use of your mind, and while the opportunity is offered unto you, why not settle the question by turning away from sin and entering unto the Lord, be saved by the power of his blood and be kept by his grace and goodness, which are supplied unto you if you walk in the light? Walking in that light, enjoying the companionship of the Savior, and dying in the triumphs of a living faith, you shall pass into the presence of God, there to rest, abide and rejoice forever and forever. Settle this question now, for life is too uncertain and the consequences too terrible for you to delay or to take a risk. It is true that life is the time to serve the Lord; life is the time to insure the great reward and while the candle holds out to burn, the vilest sinner may return, but you know not when the candle may be snuffed out; therefore, decide now.