ESCHATOLOGY

Eschatology is the doctrine of last things.

I. PHYSICAL DEATH

The Bible always gives sufficient information for the faith of the believer. The Bible was never proposed merely for his curiosity. God teaches finite beings to walk by faith in the unexplained infinite.

A. Death Is Not a Cessation of Being.

Thirty-five hundred years ago Job asked, “If a man die, shall he live again?” This question has been asked for millenniums. It is still a universal question. It is a subject of perennial interest. That those whom we love should die and be buried does not seem right; and it is not! God never made man to die; He created him to live and to have fellowship with Himself. But sin brought death and the grave, thus separation from God. Should the Lord tarry, everyone reading these words, the author included, shall die, for death has passed upon all men (Rom. 5:12).

A poem lasts longer than the poet; the voice on the recording tape can be heard years after the recording artist is dead; pictures of dead loved ones remain, even after the loved ones are gone.

Things on this earth are not equal. The rich have always oppressed the poor; the wicked have always prospered over the righteous. Human justice demands an equalization of all things in a life after death. We are living in a changing world. The robins build their nests, even as they did in the garden of Eden, and animals possess the same characteristics as they did at the beginning. However, man does not live as he used to, even as he did twenty-five years ago. Although this be true, the inquiring mind of man remains the same, still asking the question, “If a man dies, will he live again?” There is a universal belief in a life after death. If you go to the darkest part of Africa, where Christ has never been preached, you find that people there believe in a life after death. Why do some heathens burn their wives? Why do some bury food with the corpse? They believe that the departed one must have a companion and food on his journey beyond the grave. The Egyptians furnished a charter, a book for the journey, and placed it with the corpse. Why do the birds fly south? Instinct in them proves there is a southland. The heart of man, and his inward instinct are proofs that there is a life hereafter. Both physiology and philosophy maintain there must be a life after death. There are two great reservations:

1. Reservation for the Christian.

“Our Lord Jesus Christ . . . hath begotten us . . . to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you” (I Peter 1:4). In Philippians 1:23 the Apostle Paul used the word “depart” as describing death. By this he did not mean that he would cease to exist. Depart means “to depart.” Did he mean to depart to the grave with Christ? Of course not, for Christ is not in the grave; He is in heaven. II Corinthians 5:8 makes the meaning of departure even clearer when it says, “We are confident . . . and willing ... to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord” The word “present” means “to be at home with.” The death of a Christian, therefore, is pictured as a ship pulling up anchor and setting sail for home; in other words, the death of a Christian means “going home.”

2. Reservation for the Ungodly.

“The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished” (II Peter 2:9).

B. Death Is Not Soul Sleep.

The word “sleep” in Scripture, concerning the dead in Christ, means “rest.” It does not mean “unconsciousness.” The body may die, but the soul and spirit will never die. In the resurrection it is the body that is raised, not the soul and spirit. The Scriptures clearly state that the soul is absent from the body, present with the Lord; and that the souls and spirits are fully awake and aware of things round about them. A perfect illustration of the above truth is found in Revelation 6:9, 10: “When he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: and they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?” Here we see the disembodied souls, alive, and reasoning with God. The Apostle Paul says, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Phil. 1:21). “To live” meant that Paul had perfect fellowship with the living Christ. If death were the end, why would Paul say, “and to die is gain?”

C. Death Means Separation.

Death in Scripture always means “separation.” Physical death is the separation of the soul and spirit from the body. Spiritual death is the eternal, complete, final separation from God (Rev. 21:8).

Life means “union” (John 3:16). Death means “separation” (Rom. 8:35-39). The ego, the “I,” lives in the house of flesh. You are not a body, having a soul and spirit, but you are a soul and spirit possessing a body. Scientists used to tell us that the bodies in which we live change every seven years; now they say that they change every seven days. Our bodies may change, but we ourselves, that is, our ego, never changes. People cannot see us, the ego, but only the house, or tent, in which we dwell. Death is the departure from this house (II Peter 1:13,14; Phil. 1:21,24; Gal. 2:20; II Cor. 5:6,7; Job 19:26; Luke 16:26; II Tim. 4:6; II Cor. 12:2). People have been burying bodies for six thousand years; just the bodies, not the persons. The soul is the seat of feeling and appetite; from Scripture we believe it is the exact counterpart of the body. The spirit is the seat of man’s intelligence. When Samuel was called up by the request of Saul, it was his spirit that appeared, not his body. Death, then, is not a circle, or a square. We shall not be formless if we depart this life, but our souls and spirits shall be fully conscious, existing in the same form and shape as our bodies. Memory may be seated in the brain, but the brain is not the source of thought. We may remember things that happened ten years ago, but we do not have the same brain that we had ten years ago. I possess a brain, but the brain is not I. Death simply means, “I have departed”; I am separated from my body.

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