56. Life After Death? Of Course!

Unscriptural Promises

The souls of people who have died physically, do not sleep until the resurrection; they simply have not gone to their eternal home yet.  This stage is sometimes called "The Intermediate State". 

About the idea that you go to heaven when you die William Tyndale wrote, By putting them (the souls of the departed dead) in Heaven, hell or purgatory (at the time of death), you destroy the arguments wherewith Christ and Paul doth (s/b both) prove the resurrection...and again, if the souls be in heaven, tell me why they be not in as good a case as the angels be? And then what cause is there for their resurrection?

What goes by the name of resurrection in many churches today is ... bearing the marks of the Gnostic infiltration into the original faith. Popular belief, sustained by funeral sermons and indoctrination from early childhood, sees the dead as already fully alive in heaven as disembodied souls, an idea which, as so many competent scholars of all denominations have pointed out, would be both repugnant and unintelligible to the Hebrew writers of the New Testament. ... The aim of the traditional teaching is, no doubt, to comfort the bereaved with the belief that the departed are not really dead, but it has had the devastating effect of relegating the future resurrection of the dead (as well as the whole New Testament scheme of the future) to a redundant appendage tagged on to the end of the creed. 
The Coming Kingdom of the Messiah by Sir Anthony F. Buzzard.

In Greek Orthodox Church theology the soul waits in the abode of the dead until the resurrection of the dead, the saved resting in light and the damned suffering in darkness. According to James Tabor this Eastern Orthodox picture of particular judgment is similar to the 1st-century Jewish and early Christian concept that the dead either "rest in peace" in the Bosom of Abraham or suffer in Hades. Wikipedia  

If the apostles of Christ accepted and taught that doctrine, how is it that the post-reformation church rejects it; unless it is for the modern church’s need for false comfort messages?

Carefully Chosen Texts

Mr Martin, author of The Truth About Seventh Day Adventism writes, students of the Word of God... recognize that in any study of the doctrines of eternal life and immortality it is vitally essential to...(compare all texts on a given subject).  Still, common practice, even by Mr Martin, is to use only those portions which are easily interpreted, so that they add weight to the teacher's point of view.  He then, mistakenly, to show the error of Seventh Day Adventist doctrines, chooses five portions of scripture to prove that souls go to their eternal home at death.

We will look at the scriptures he chose, and, I might add, if these are the best arguments there are in the Bible for his point of view, his arguments stand on shaky ground.

1. Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live”. John 11:25. Mr Martin writes, (these) words must refer to that particular occasion (Lazarus’ death). To teach that the end of the age is primarily in view…is a violation of the grammar and context.

Certainly, the situation was Lazarus’ death, but Christ's statement was not limited to Lazarus, he said, He, anyone, not only Lazarus.  

Notice that there is room for a distinct time lapse between the words though he may die and he shall live because the word shall is definitely a future tense word.  The time lapse involved very well could account for the period of time after death but before the resurrection. Jesus did not say that souls resurrection would happen immediately after death.

2. God's grace ... has now been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, For this reason, I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day. 2 Tim. 1:9+10+12.

To quote Mr Martin again, In this verse life and immortality are clearly distinguished. Life has been bestowed upon the believer at the moment of regeneration by faith in Jesus Christ; immortality is a future gift, to be bestowed upon the believer’s body at the Second Advent of our Lord.

According to Mr Martin, Paul wrote that in the present tense, Christ has given us life but that in the future tense he will bestow immortality on us.  This is a good argument, however, the point when that future tense becomes effective might come after a period of waiting and not at the time of death.  Therefore, his argument really carries no weight at all!

There is another point in verse 12, a point that Mr Martin does not address.  Paul wrote; He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day.  The term that day is also future tense but Paul does not specify whether that day pertains to the day of his death or the day of Christ’s appearing, which might well be after an unspecified length of time, in the interim between physical death and the resurrection.

We will continue this in the next post.