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Do You
Have an Immortal Soul?
Are
unsaved sinners tortured in hell forever?
Do you go to heaven or hell right at death? Are the dead unconscious until the resurrection? What does the Bible teach about the state of
the dead?
By Eric V. Snow
Are we humans naturally immortal? Will we live forever, whether it be in heaven or hell? Do the dead even go to heaven or hell right at death? Or rather, is immortality conditional upon continued faith in and obedience to God? What does the Bible teach about where the dead go after they die? When the Bible's text is carefully examined, without reading preconceived ideas or interpretations into it, it reveals that the dead presently aren't alive in heaven or hell, but they remain unconscious until the day they are resurrected. Ecclesiastes 9:5-6, 10 clearly teach that the dead aren't conscious: "For the living know that they will die: But the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, their hatred and their envy have now perished; Nevermore will they have a share is anything done under the sun. . . . Whatever your had finds to do, do it with your might: For there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going." Therefore, nobody goes to heaven or hell at death, but each person lies unconscious in the common grave of humanity until his or her resurrection, excepting for those few Christians translated or “born again” (John 3:5-8) at the first resurrection when Jesus returns (I Cor. 15:45-55; I Thess. 4:14-17).
The
Bible Teaches The Doctrine of Conditional Immortality
The technical
name for this doctrine is "conditional immortality." People only have eternal
life conditionally upon obeying and having faith in God and
Jesus as their Savior. According to
this teaching, the soul doesn’t separate from the body's continued life. The “soul” requires for its continued
existence a “body” (the physical, biological organism) and a “spirit” (the life
force animating the flesh that God breathed into Adam when creating him,
Genesis 2:7). Similarly, a light bulb
needs both a functioning filament within a glass (its “body”) and electricity
flowing through it (its “spirit”) to give light from being a functioning whole,
i.e., like a “soul.” So when the body
dies, and the spirit/life force leaves, the soul dies or ceases to exist.
Notice Ezekiel 18:4 and 20. Both say, "The soul that sins
shall die." Now, after seeing such a text, should we devise/invent a
definition for "death" for the "soul" that doesn't refer to
its ceasing to be conscious? The "separation from God"
interpretation of such texts is a (suddenly invented) definition for
"death" that's been read into them because people have assumed the
truth of the traditional teaching about the immortality of the soul. So
people only have eternal life conditional upon obeying God, and that
the unsaved will have no consciousness until their resurrection.
If the word
translated "soul," "nephesh" in Hebrew, is
examined generally by how it is used elsewhere in the Old Testament,
it can't refer to an immortal soul that separates from the body and has
continued consciousness. This word does appear in Eze. 18:4. But it also refers to a dead body in Num.
9:6-10 several times and to animals in Genesis 1:21, 24. So when the body
dies, nothing conscious leaves the body and goes to heaven or hell then.
The "soul" then ceases to exist until the resurrection, when
the spirit of man is reunited with the physical body God has just made by resurrecting
it. But this “spirit in man” (I Cor. 2:11; Job 32:8) isn't
conscious when separate from the body. It records the personality and
character of the person who died, but it can’t think when not connected to the
body. Notice, by the way, how we have a "spirit," a "soul,"
and a "body." An advocate of the immortal/eternal soul doctrine
really should choose between "spirit" and "soul," and not
inadvertently assert humans have two immortal parts!
Since people
only have eternal life conditionally upon having faith in and obeying
God, the unsaved won’t have consciousness until their resurrection
either. Jesus said Lazarus was asleep before resurrecting him (John
11:11-13; cf. Job 14:12). Paul said that if the resurrection didn't
happen, the saved dead were lost, which means they couldn't have been conscious
souls living in heaven then: "For if the dead do not rise, then
Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile;
you are still in your sins! Then also those who have fallen asleep in
Christ have perished" (I Cor. 15:16-18). Job said that fathers
who die don't know whether their sons are honored or become insignificant
(Job 14:20). So dead parents supposedly saved and living in
heaven wouldn't know what their offspring on earth are doing. David
said in Ps. 6:5: "For there is no mention of Thee in death; in Sheol
who will give Thee thanks?" (See also Isaiah 38:18-19 for
similar thoughts). So could the saved dead (in heaven or elsewhere)
even possibly not be praising God? It would be absurd! The rhetorical question in Ps. 88:10’s
second line implies the departed spirits aren’t praising God. Psalm 115:17 says flatly: “The dead do not praise the
Lord.” In Psalm 146:4, it says we shouldn't trust in mortal man
because, "His spirit departs, he returns to the earth; In that very day
his thoughts perish." Although the word translated
"thoughts" here can be translated more narrowly as
"plans," the Christian writer Uriah Smith has
said that the Hebrew word here refers to "the act of the mind in the
process of thinking and reasoning." If so, the dead can't be
conscious according to this text either. Therefore, if the saved
dead, of whom Paul spoke here, aren't resurrected, then they are unsaved and
aren't restored to consciousness.
The doctrines
of the immortality of the soul and of the resurrection simply aren't compatible
(especially as taught in I Cor. 15). After all, if the immortal soul is
perfectly happy to live in heaven, why reunite it with the material body?
And if the wicked entered hell right after they died and are presently
suffering eternal punishing, why pull them out of hell and reunite them with
their physical bodies? Would they be thrown right back into hell again
after being judged again? Could God have made a mistake the first
time around after they died? Does He
review His previous decision for error after the millennium ends? What balderdash! Why reencumber spirit
bodies (see I Cor. 15:42-45) with gross material flesh again after they have
possibly lived in heaven or hell for thousands of years? According to Rev. 20:13, "death
and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one
of them according to their deeds."
The Great White Throne Judgment of Rev. 20:11-15 implies those who died
before Jesus’ return and came up in the second resurrection are all judged at
the same time, not piecemeal down through the generations as they died. Paul
wrote that if the resurrection didn't happen, the saved dead were lost, which
means they couldn't have been conscious souls living in heaven then:
"For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. And if
Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins!
Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished" (I Cor.
15:16-18). If someone is
"perished" without a personal resurrection, then he or she isn't
alive consciously while dead before it occurs. Paul uses
"sleep" here to refer to the state of the dead (as in verse 20
also). So if the saved dead, of whom he's speaking here, aren't
resurrected, then they are actually unsaved and aren't restored to consciousness.
The resurrection wouldn't be regarded as such a crucial doctrine if we were
still conscious after death.
If indeed the
dead are fully conscious, the Bible’s analogy between death and sleep makes no
sense. To say only the "body" sleeps, not the whole “person,”
in order to explain this away runs again into the problem of the resurrection:
If we stay conscious continuously after death automatically when we would
go to heaven or hell at death, why have a resurrection at all? Also, if this "spirit/soul" is the
real part of the person, and the body superfluous matter to staying conscious,
isn’t it rather deceiving to call the state of the dead "sleep"?
It's hardly "sleep" to suffer conscious misery in hell as the
flames supposedly torture the wicked terribly.
The doctrines of the immortality of the soul and of the resurrection are
simply incompatible, although many will illogically labor mightily to square
this circle.
When the dead
enter the great collective grave of mankind, "sheol" in Hebrew, and
"hades" in Greek, they aren't conscious of anything. They
aren't in heaven, hell, limbo, or purgatory. When Jesus said this (John
3:13), no man had gone to heaven (i.e., where God's throne is, the third
heaven): "No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from
heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven." Even
after Christ's resurrection, King David, the man after God's own heart,
hadn't ascended to heaven according to Peter (Acts 2:29, 34): "Men
and brethren, let me speak freely to you of the patriarch David, that he is
both dead and buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. . . . For David did
not ascend into the heavens." In
the same passage, Peter cited David in the Old Testament to prove the Messiah
Himself wouldn’t ascend to heaven before His resurrection, but His soul would
stay briefly in the grave while He was dead (v. 27): “For You will not leave my soul in Hades, nor will You allow Your
Holy One to see corruption.” So when
the dead enter the great collective grave of mankind, sheol in Hebrew, hades in
Greek, they aren't conscious of anything. They aren't in heaven, hell, or
purgatory. So when will Christians
experience what’s described in I John
3:2?: "Beloved, we are God's children now; it does not yet appear
what we shall be, but we know that when he [Jesus] appears we shall be
like him, for we shall see him as he is." Notice that this text
refers to Jesus' second coming, not to the present. We wouldn't see Jesus
right after we die nor, surprisingly enough, do saved Christians go right to
heaven!
After all,
what do the meek inherit? (Matt. 5:5) They inherit the earth, not
heaven! Similarly, doesn’t God the
Father come down to a new earth in the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:1-3)? So I John 3:2 discusses what happens when
Christians will be resurrected (I Cor. 15:51-54) and rise to meet Jesus in the
clouds/sky of the earth (I Thess. 4:16-17).
That’s not an exotic, faraway, “spiritual” location: That’s where airplanes fly everyday! Instead of remaining a immortal/eternal
soul/spirit, our bodies will be transformed by a resurrection (or translation,
if we're alive when Jesus comes) that will give us eternal life (I Cor.
15:48-54). There’s no other way we can
be saved, meaning, be preserved to live for all eternity. After all,
Jesus comes to the earth (Zechariah 14:3-4) from where He prepared a place
(i.e., positions in the kingdom of God, cf. Luke 19:11-27; Matt. 25:14-30) for
us so "that [when on earth] where I am you may be also" (John
14:3).
Can those who
died unsaved still get saved? According
to Scripture, unsaved people who die aren't immediately put into an eternal
hell fire. Instead, they simply aren't judged until the second
resurrection takes place (see Rev. 20:5; cf. I Cor. 15:22-24). This would
be true for both babies and adults who were uncalled in this
lifetime. Because they weren’t called
during their first lives on earth (see John 6:44, 65; Acts 2:39; Matt.
13:11-16; Romans 8:28-30), they will get their first and only chance
(not a “second chance”) to be saved after their resurrection at the end of the
millennium, after Christ had ruled on earth for a thousand years. Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of dry bones
of the house of Israel provides the clearest passage showing the unsaved dead
will be resurrected and then given an opportunity for salvation. Now the Chosen People generally had a dismal
history spiritually. Israel was often
very disobedient. Israelites born in
the pre-Exile period (not just Jewish, of the tribe of Judah only when strictly
defined) commonly were violating the First Commandment by being idolaters, just
as typical Hindus are today. Most of Israel obviously was not saved
back then since so many were so faithless and disobedient that they often used
statues while worshiping false gods, such as Baal, Chemosh, Molech, and
Dagon. But instead of being thrown into the lake of fire after their
resurrection, they are lovingly put back into the land of Israel, as God
told Ezekiel (Eze. 37:11-14):
“Son
of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel; behold, they say, ‘Our bones
are dried up, and our hope has perished. We are completely cut
off.' Therefore prophesy, and say to them, 'Thus says the Lord God,
"Behold, I will open your graves and cause you to come up out of your
graves, My people; and I will bring you into the land of Israel. Then you
will know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves and caused you to
come up out of your graves, My people. And I will put My Spirit within
you, and you will come to life, and I will place you on your own
land.”’"
These unsaved Israelites were no more saved
than ignorant Buddhists, Hindus, animists, pagans, and Muslims. Indeed, most Israelites didn't have the Holy
Spirit, which conditionally gives salvation by its presence (Eph. 4:30;
1:13-14), which only became much more generally available on Pentecost in 31
A.D. after Jesus’ resurrection and later ascension to heaven (John 16:7; Acts
1:4-5; 2:2-4). But when they were resurrected, they weren't tossed into
hell, but were placed in the Holy Land! Notice that they were resurrected
to have physical bodies of flesh (verses 7-10), not bodies composed of spirit,
like angels have (Hebrews 1:7) and already saved Christians will receive when
Jesus returns (I Cor. 15:42-53).
God will
not condemn any who are ignorant during their first lifetimes on earth,
but only the willfully knowing wicked who refuse to repent even after their
resurrection (Daniel 12:2). After all,
if God commands all men everywhere to repent (Acts 17:30), He has to make His
will theoretically possible to fulfill.
Likewise, the Lord (II Peter 3:9) “is patient toward you, not wishing
for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.” Paul also told Timothy that God “desires all men to be saved, and
to come to the knowledge of the truth” (I Timothy 2:4). So doesn’t God want to save everyone? Will God condemn to an eternity of torture
in hell fire those who never heard Jesus' name or who never heard the Gospel
preached? Would God hurl billions of ignorant Chinese and East Indian
peasants to burn in hell for endless trillions of years for a mere mayfly
lifetime of sins without an opportunity to escape their dire fates? Would God so fail so colossally to grant
them a practical way to gain repentance (Acts 11:18) so they possibly could be
saved? Is it fair for God to condemn
those who never had a chance to begin with? Can the traditional view
justify God's justice to humanity (i.e., construct a convincing theodicy)?
Is a brief life of (say) 20, 40, or 70 years of moderate sin fairly
punished by trillions and trillions of years of burning torture? And
that's merely for starters, the barest preface to a never-ending story of
agony. Will God maintain and supervise this a plague spot in His universe
for all eternity with evil angels and men suffering for their sins? Or
will God totally clean out His universe (see Acts 3:21) in order to restore the
conditions that existed before Lucifer (a/k/a Satan) rebelled and Adam and Eve
ate of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil? Wouldn’t God ultimately want EVERY living
creature still remaining in the created universe (cf. Rev. 5:13) to bless Him
and to worship Him?
As indicated
by Matt. 12:41-42 (compare 11:21-24), most people aren't judged yet during this
lifetime. The pagan inhabitants of
Nineveh aren't yet burning eternally in hell. If the immortal soul
doctrine is true, then the judgment has to occur at death. Otherwise, the dead are being held in an
unconsciousness state instead. How else could presumably unsaved people
during their lifetimes, such as the men of Nineveh who heard Jonah and the
Queen of Sheba who visited Solomon, condemn Jews who rejected Jesus as their
Messiah when He visited their villages and towns? It would be most
curious for God to resurrect these people who (most likely) never had the Holy
Spirit, which is a requirement for salvation (Romans 8:9-11; II Cor. 5:5), and
let them condemn others before tossing them all into hell.
Notice that
Israel still has a chance at salvation despite having rejected their Messiah to
date, according to Paul: "And thus all Israel will be saved"
(Rom. 11:26; cf. verses 7, 26). If this generalization wasn't true, how
could Paul write it? Could (say) 90% of Israel be lost to hell despite he
believed they all would be saved? Although we know some won't be saved,
such as Judas Iscariot, it has to be that almost all of them will be, despite
they often worshipped false gods using idols during their physical
lifetimes.
We shouldn’t
mistakenly assume that when the dead are “judged” that has to mean
"sentencing" rather than “probation.” Nor should we equate "sentencing" with
"judgment." Someone who is judged or being judged need not at
that moment be condemned and sentenced to a particular punishment. A
person can have a period of judging before a final outcome is
determined. For example, Peter says "it is time for judgment to
begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be
the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?" (I Pet.
4:17). Since Christians during this lifetime aren’t yet sentenced,
"judgment" here simply can't mean only "sentencing." So we should be wary of assuming this automatically
for other texts, such as Hebrews 9:27, but see what the context indicates or
what other parts of the Bible teach
Are the
wicked to be eternally tortured? Do the
unrepentant disobedient have eternal life also? After all, if each person has an undying, immortal soul or
spirit, it has to live forever in the place of punishment if it won’t live
forever in the place of reward. The Bible teaches that "the soul who
sins shall die" (Ezekiel 18:4, 20).
If that soul “dies,” does it actually continue to “live”? The last book of the Old Testament teaches
the wicked will be destroyed to nothingness, that they will be ashes underneath
the feet of the righteous (Malachi 4:1, 3):
“’For behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace; and all the
arrogant and every evildoer will be chaff; and the day that is coming will set
them ablaze,’ says the Lord of hosts, ‘so that it will leave them neither root
nor branch.’ . . . And you will tread down the wicked, for they shall be ashes
under the soles of your feet on the day which I am preparing,’ says the Lord of
hosts.” Now if the wicked will be like
burnt up like waste from grain that will leave nothing behind (“neither root nor
branch”), will they still have an intact consciousness? If they will be, not just “be like,”
but “be ashes” that the righteous will literally walk over, will those “ashes”
still be feeling their painful misery?
Let’s turn now to the New Testament.
Jesus warned his listeners (Matt. 10:28): “Do not fear those who kill the body, but are unable to kill the
soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in
hell.” Are we going to read a creative
definition into the word “destroy” here in order to prop up preconceived
theology? If the word “destroy” means
to ruin something such that it can no longer function, do we assume a “soul”
can be “destroyed” yet still function with consciousness? Uriah Smith pointed to the implied analogy
made in Christ’s statement that undermines a non-literal meaning for the word
“destroy”: “Whatever killing does to
the body, destroying does to the soul.”
Consider Paul’s well known statement (Romans 6:23): "For the
wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus
our Lord." Do we assume that the
opposite of “eternal life” is “death,” meaning, “eternal life in hell”?
Did Paul intend a complicated, metaphorical meaning here, such as
"separation from God”? If a
conventional, literal definition of "death" is upheld here or in
other similar texts, that is, “cessation of consciousness,” the inevitable
conclusion is that the wicked are punished by “death,” not “endless life in
hell,” but a state of non-functioning consciousness. Eternal punishment (Matt. 25:46) shouldn’t be confused with
eternal punishing, since a death that never ends is a punishment that
lasts forever.
How
to Examine Allegedly Biblical Objections to Conditional Immortality and
Annihilation of the Wicked
What
objections can those defending the traditional view make against the doctrines
of conditional immortality and the annihilation of the wicked? Let’s briefly survey some of them. As a general test of the doctrine of conditional
immortality, read all the supposedly contrary texts that say "spirit"
or "soul.” Ask these two questions
for each one: 1. Does this text say the
soul or spirit can think or is conscious after death? 2. Does this text say the
soul or spirit is immortal? For example, do the words of Eccl. 12:7 prove
the spirit is immortal or conscious?
“The spirit will return to the God who gave it.” These texts just
don’t provide enough evidence to prove what the immortal/eternal soul advocates
believe. They read into the Bible’s texts what they desire, which is
called eisengesis, thus proving absolutely nothing. In some cases, the words translated “spirit” or “soul,” mean
“life force” (Genesis 2:7; Matt. 27:50; Luke 23:46; compare Mark 15:39; I Kings
17:17, 21-22). Then consider whether two different words, “spirit” and “soul,”
can be used to describe the same supposedly immortal or eternal part of
mankind’s nature. If we have both body,
soul, and spirit, do we have two immortal parts? Do the two survive after and separate from the body after
death? Or does just one does? Is it a legitimate practice of good Biblical
hermeneutics, or systematic Biblical interpretation, to keep shifting back and
forth between the two words? Can
someone claim legitimately that the two English words, or the Hebrew and Greek
words from which they are translated, have the same meaning?
Do Philippians 1:23 and II Corinthians 5:8 Prove the Dead
Are Alive?
Do Phil. 1:23
and II Cor. 5:8 prove Christians go to heaven when they die? Neither text says anything about eternal
torment or the immortality of the soul. Both such thoughts have to be
read into the texts here. After all, theoretically someone could believe
people go to heaven or hell at death, but still affirm that the souls thrown
into hell would eventually be completely destroyed, not eternally tortured.
For both texts, the orthodox
position’s defender assumes that no resurrection happens between the beginning
of death and entering the Lord’s presence. Yet I Cor. 15:16-18
presupposes that the only way to gain eternal life is from a resurrection. As
a matter of hermeneutics, all the texts on a subject should be examined to
determine correct doctrines. It’s a
shoddy interpretive procedure to just pick out a few texts to prop up a favored
position chosen beforehand a priori, long before the evidence was examined
without bias. Neither Phil. 1:23 nor II Cor. 5:8 say Paul or Christians
in general would immediately enter the presence of Jesus after their
deaths. Rev. 20:5, 11-15 shows that most unsaved people (i.e., excepting
those called during their first lifetimes who later refused to practice God’s
truth) aren't judged until after the millennium ends. They aren't judged
at their deaths, dumped into hell now when they die, and later pulled out,
judged again, and then thrown back in.
Neither text is clear enough to
really accomplish the goal for which they are typically used. For
example, neither says we have an immortal soul that's conscious separately from
the body. Such thoughts have to be read into the texts in question.
It's far easier to conclude that (in the case of Phil. 1:23) that when
Paul died, he would have no consciousness of passing time in the grave. So the moment he died would be seemingly
instantly followed by the moment of his being resurrected and meeting Jesus in
the sky at the Second Coming. If the
saved and unsaved have no consciousness or sense of time passing until they
come to life again, centuries can pass yet they would be experienced as if they
were a single night’s sleep. The
ancient Greek philosopher Socrates (428-348 b.c.), despite being a pagan having
no knowledge of the Hebrew Bible or of the resurrection, still knew this truth
nevertheless: “Now if there is no
consciousness but only a dreamless sleep, death must be a marvelous gain. . . .
If death is like this, then I call it gain, because the whole of time, if you
look at it in this way, can be regarded as no more than one single night”
(Apology, 40d-e). If an advocate of
conditional immortality asserted that what they describe would happen at the
Second Coming (as per I Cor. 15:23 and I Thess. 4:15-17), neither text
contradicts him. After all, Paul faithfully anticipated receiving a
“crown of righteousness” on the day of Jesus’ return (II Tim. 4:6-7), not right
after he died. It's necessary to figure
out what Paul means based what he wrote elsewhere or to use other passages of
Scripture to figure out what these texts mean rather than ideas we may have
presupposed on our own from what we've been traditionally taught. The Bible should be used to interpret the Bible,
which is an especially important point when interpreting prophecy, but that's
another subject.
Do the Parable of the Richman and Lazarus Prove the Dead Are Conscious?
Does
the parable of the Richman and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31) prove we have immortal
souls? Fundamentally it’s a poor idea
to base doctrine on something clearly allegorical. Christ’s analogies that explain spiritual truths shouldn’t be
used as proof for doctrines beyond their obvious intended spiritual or moral
lessons. This parable mainly taught
about the duty of the well-off to care for the poor and that those who fully
know God’s truth should act on it in this life, for after they die it’s too
late. Unlike Jesus’ debate with
Sadducees, this passage wasn’t primarily intended to teach about what life
after death would actually be like.
Even in this parable, the rich man wanted Lazarus after he was raised
from the dead to go back to warn his brothers (cf. Luke 16:30-31). The rich man says nothing about wanting
Lazarus’s immortal soul to go on a visit. The rich man (or “Dives”) is
also contemplating being thrown into Gehenna or the lake of fire. (Three Greek words are translated “hell” in
the King James Version: “Gehenna”
refers to a fiery place of punishment for the wicked, but “hades,” the common
grave of mankind, never does except perhaps in verse 23 of this parable). He's can’t be there already: Why does he request only a tiny amount of
water (v. 24), not a Niagara's worth?
Notice also this passage says nothing about eternal torment: How long the rich man’s suffering will last
remains unstated. But now, according to
the Bible elsewhere, when are the dead raised anyway? They aren't raised
right after they die, since that doesn't happen until Jesus returns (at the
earliest). The rich man himself
wouldn't be resurrected until at least the end of the millennium, or (much more
likely) about 100 years afterwards (Isaiah 65:17, 20), since he wasn't saved
before dying. So when the rich man wanted Lazarus to go back, this was
impossible. It would require a “time
machine.” His brothers would have died
centuries earlier, so presumably (if equally unsaved) they would be resurrected
right when he was. Their course of action in their past lives couldn't
now be changed by the actions of resurrected Lazarus or the rich man himself.
This raises the whole issue of the incompatibility of the resurrection
and the immortal/eternal soul doctrine, since the latter focuses on immediate
consequences for one's sins after death, but the former delays it until
the general Judgment following the resurrection.
Does I Peter 3:18-20 prove Jesus
was alive when he was dead? If Jesus had to make a full sacrifice for our
sins, then it was necessary that He totally die for us. His state of
death shouldn't have differed from what ours will be if His sacrifice was to
redeem us from the same fate.
Let’s read the full text (I
Peter 3:18-20): "For Christ also died for sins once for all, the
just for the unjust, in order that He might bring us to God, having been put to
death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit; in which also He went and
made proclamation to the spirits now in prison, who once were disobedient, when
the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction
of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through
the water." Notice that the word "now" in v. 19 (NASB) is
in italics, so it wasn't in the original text.
When Jesus did this was in the
days of Noah by the Holy Spirit, not during the three days and three nights He
was dead. The term "spirits in prison" can refer to ordinary
people held in the bondage of sin (see Luke 4:18-20). It need not refer
to the fallen angels or people’s departed immortal/eternal souls/spirits.
When Jesus was "made alive," He had to have been dead
completely. It doesn't say, He "continued to live," etc.
When He did this preaching, He did it by the Spirit, which meant the job
had been delegated. Remember now the old language convention by which
what a king, president, or leader does includes what his subordinates do at his
request or command. Hence, when Theodore Roosevelt built the Panama Canal,
he obviously used many laborers and engineers to actually construct it.
But it's still credited to him.
King Solomon likewise was said to have built the temple of Jehovah (I
Kings 8:2, 14), but Bible itself also says that thousands of laborers worked to
construct it (I Kings 7:13-18). Similarly, it’s possible that what the
Spirit did in preaching was attributed to Jesus, who guides and controls the
Spirit. Indeed, the Spirit is sometimes
equated with Jesus: “Now the Lord is
the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” (II Cor.
3:17). In Acts 2:31 Jesus was in hades ("hell," KJV), the
common grave of mankind, which shouldn't be equated to this "prison."
Does
Jesus' statement about Judas prove the wicked would be tortured forever in hell?
According to Mark 14:21, Jesus
said: "Woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! It
would have been better for that man if he had not been born." Does
this text say anything about the soul or spirit being indestructible or
immortal or undying or eternal? Obviously not. Such concepts have
to be read into this text. To prove those beliefs, other texts would have
to be cited. It simply can't bear this kind of weight without far more
direct evidence that says the soul/spirit is immortal/eternal/indestructible/undying. Let’s reply to this question another
way: Would Paul (Romans 9:3) or Moses (Ex. 32:32) want to be
roasted in hell's fires for unending trillions of years to save
others? That’s hard to accept!
Then how would Judas' fate of total
destruction such that his consciousness ceases to function be worse than
his never being born? Well, Judas will end up in the lake of fire that's
described in Rev. 20. Even some intense pain in fire for a
given definite period before being destroyed into ashes (Malachi 4:1,
3) is worse than never existing, that is, never feeling pain. But
there are other ways Judas would have been better off by never existing.
For example, would we want to have such an awful reputation that billions
of people would always remember us for betraying the Savior to His
executioners? Some will be resurrected to shame and everlasting contempt
(Daniel 12:2). Judas would have an incredible black hole of a
reputation for all eternity. Would we want to be one of unrepentant
wicked subjected to that punishment, despite that after we've suffered the
second death, we would know nothing about what others will think of us
throughout eternity?
Furthermore, to have an
unpleasant life on earth alone can make it better for someone not to be even
born, according to Solomon (Eccl. 6:3-5): "If a man begets a
hundred children, and lives many years, so that the days of his years are many,
but he does not enjoy life's good things, and also has no burial, I say that an
untimely birth [i.e., a miscarriage--EVS] is better off than he. For it
comes into vanity and goes into darkness, and in darkness its name is covered;
moreover it has not seen the sun or known anything; yet it finds rest rather
than he." How should someone look at Judas Iscariot's life ending as
a suicide after he betrayed his Master?
Could this also be true of him? Did Judas receive a decent
burial after he killed himself? So if an unpleasant life on earth could
make it better to not be born, there’s no intrinsic need to bring
into the balances matters about an unpleasant afterlife to judge
whether it would be better for someone not to have been born to begin with.
Can
the Living Be Baptized to Save the Dead?
The LDS/Mormon Church mistakenly uses
I Cor. 15:29 to support its teachings on baptizing people who are now
dead. In their temples zealous Mormons
will ritualistically immerse themselves on behalf of others, typically departed
relatives. Ironically, it arguably contradicts Alma 34:32-35 in the Book
of Mormon. That’s no surprise, for Joseph Smith did not remain consistent in
his theology while he was an alleged prophet of God. For instance,
Doctrine & Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price, which are polytheistic,
are worlds apart from the Book of Mormon’s more orthodox theology.
But what was Paul driving at in
I Cor. 15:29? "Otherwise, what will those do who are baptized for
the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why then are they baptized
for them?" Notice the general context of the chapter concerned
Paul’s rebuttal against the skeptical Corinthian Christians who denied the
resurrection (v. 12). In order to get eternal life and salvation, we have
to be resurrected since Paul didn’t teach the immortality/eternity of the soul.
The Greek word translated "for" in verse 29, which is
"huper," can mean "in view of," "for the hope
of," "instead of," "for the realization of,"
"over," and "above," not just "for" only.
To put in "for the hope of" really makes sense. So Paul
meant something like this here: "Why be baptized for the hope (or
“in view of”) the dead, if you don't think they will be raised? Why were
you baptized to begin with, if the dead are not resurrected, since that's the
only way to gain eternal life?" Also, note that we are baptized into
Christ's death, as a partial reenactment of what He did in His life, as per
Rom. 6:3-6 and Col. 2:12-13. Our burial in the water for our sins is a
symbolic reenactment of His entombment in the earth for three days and three
nights after He bore the world's sins.
Now the Mormon church's motives
for baptizing dead people aren’t altogether bad. They want to believe
those who never even heard about Jesus or those who heard but did little about
it can still be saved. As explained
already above, the Bible does give the previously uncalled their first chance
to be saved in the next life. The vast
majority will be saved, but only after they get resurrected in the second
resurrection after the millennium ends (as described in the great white throne
judgment of Revelation 20:11-15). If there's no going to heaven or hell
or purgatory right at death, and no immortal soul and no continued
consciousness, then God can save (nearly) the whole world actually, not just
potentially.
No one should
assume that what the Jews of Jesus’ day taught about the state of the dead is
Biblically accurate. For example, the Pharisees and Sadducees had different
views about whether people are resurrected or not. Obviously, both sides couldn’t be right! This division proves many first-century Jews
had a wrong view of the afterlife. Paul perceived and took advantage of
their division on this issue when standing before the Sanhedrin, the Jewish
ruling council under the Romans (Acts 23:6-7).
(He later (Acts 24:20-21) somewhat regretted that he did so!) Acts
23:8 explains the sectarian division among the Jews concerning whether the dead
would live again: "For the Sadducees say that there is no
resurrection--and no angel or spirit; but the Pharisees confess
both." On the same subject, note that Jesus affirmed the
resurrection of the dead when debating with the Sadducees in Luke 20:27-38.
So if Jews in
Jesus' time did believe the dead were conscious, they didn’t believe what the
Bible itself taught in the Old Testament, as explained above. And, as the
case of the Sadducees shows, they plainly denied the resurrection of the dead
despite Scripture did teach it (Isaiah 26:19; Eze. 37:1-14; Dan. 12:2).
So what the Jews believed wasn't necessarily correct, no more than in their
(mainstream) view, the Messiah was only a conquering king, not a suffering
servant Just because they knew and know Hebrew doesn't mean their
interpretations of their own holy book are automatically reliable and
privileged. The beliefs of an ancient Hellenistic (Greek-speaking) Jew
like Philo, who lived in Alexandria in Egypt, may have been influenced by pagan Greek
ideas of the immortality of the soul or the state of the dead. The Jewish
book Wisdom of Solomon sees an evil fate for the wicked dead, but doesn't
apparently believe they’ll suffer eternal torment in hell, but just ultimately
be total destroyed.
The
apocryphal book of Enoch (written apparently around the time period Jesus
lived or somewhat before) pictures the (Jewish) dead split into two basic
classes, the wicked and the righteous. The righteous have a place of
light and a fountain. The wicked are
split into three further classes. One
set never was judged during their human lifetimes, but their spirits will be
separated out for great punishment that will bind them forever. The second group, who complained to God,
will be resurrected and punished with torment.
The third won't be resurrected to be punished at all, but will just be
left alone to lie unconsciously dead for all eternity. The first century
A.D. Jewish historian Josephus said the Pharisees believed that all souls were
imperishable. They also thought that
the souls of the good people passed into other bodies, but the souls of the
evil were punished with "everlasting punishment." Christ’s
chief critics also believed the "souls have a deathless vigor, and that
beneath the earth there are rewards and punishments according as they have been
devoted to life to virtue or to vice. For the latter everlasting
imprisonment is prescribed; for the former [i.e., the righteous
group] capability of coming to life again." This might not
mean, however, that eternal punishment was eternal torture, as opposed to
merely being dead forever.
The Jewish
teachers of the schools of Shammai and Hillel thought those who were partially
good and partially evil (i.e., most people!) would be treated differently.
The sages of the Shammai school maintained the half evil would go down to hell,
and later come back up, being purged and refined from sin by the fires of
Gehenna. But those of the Hillel school
believed God was so merciful that He wouldn't send such average people down to
hell at all. The author of 4 Esdras, an apocryphal book not in the Bible,
found it very distressing but self-evident that only a few would be saved. The Pharisees apparently invented a story
about the righteous going to Abraham's bosom as a section of sheol, or the
common grave of humanity, while the rest of Sheol was reserved for the
wicked. But that story doesn't
apparently receive coverage in George Foot Moore's multi-volume book “Judaism,”
which is here the main source about ancient Jewish views of the afterlife
besides Scripture.
In general,
just because the Jews believe the Old Testament (to them, the Tanakh) teaches a
particular doctrine doesn’t mean Christians should unthinkingly accept their
interpretations of it. They don’t have
the right day for the Passover (Nisan 14, not Nisan 15), the right day for
Pentecost (a Sunday seven weeks after the Feast of Unleavened Bread ends, not
Sivan 6), or the right view of God’s oneness (God is two Beings presently, not
one solitary Person). After all, did
Jesus uncritically accept their traditional interpretations of Scripture? He criticized them for using various
man-made traditions of the oral law to override the written word of God by (see
Matt. 15:3-13). Just because they know
Hebrew doesn’t automatically mean they are correctly interpreting their own
holy word. An informed Christian
knowing English only, but having the Holy Spirit (John 14:26; 16:13), will
normally interpret the Old Testament better than the informed Jew knowing both
Hebrew and English, but not having the Holy Spirit.
In
conclusion, let’s celebrate because the Bible teaches conditional immortality
and the annihilation of the wicked! To
know our now dead and unsaved relatives and friends can still be saved should
warm our hearts. To realize that nobody
is presently burning in hell as a mere warm-up for an eternity of terrible
torment should cheer our souls. To
understand the truth about the state of the dead should melt away our own
worries about our own eventual deaths (John 8:32): “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
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