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“For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 9:5, 6; KJV)
“The dead praise not the LORD, neither any that go down into silence.” (Psalms 115:17)
“Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.” (Psalms 146:3,4; KJV)
“Consider and hear me, O LORD my God: lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death;” (Psalms 13:3; KJV)
Jesus said: “These things said he: and after that he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep. Then said his disciples, Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well. Howbeit Jesus spake of his death: but they thought that he had spoken of taking of rest in sleep. Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead.” (John 11:11 to 14; KJV)
Throughout the Bible, the hope of the faithful is for the resurrection from the dead at the Second Coming of Christ. (See 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17.) God remembers all those who die, and whenever He wishes to, He can restore the body and place the original mind with the original sense of identity back into the body, so the original person who lived before lives again. But until this is done, the mind has no awareness of any kind, including the passage of time. There is no consciousness in death. You have to have a brain to think with, to process sensory input, etc.
There are actually two errors commonly held about the state of the dead. The first, and most important (because it is so widely held) is based on the common misconception that the human soul is naturally immortal, which in turn implies that there is consciousness in death. We have already seen that the Bible plainly contradicts this view. This error opens the way for demons to deceive us by masquerading as departed loved ones, or other notable persons.
But there is a second error, held by many of those who rightly accept the Bible truth that there is no consciousness in death. And that is the supposition that the spirit of life is no more than an “energizing spark.” This is not only simplistic, it also misrepresents God’s character, and makes Him out to be fraudulent in His promise to resurrect those who are faithful to Him. This is because it suggests that God merely creates a physical copy of the person who once lived, and gives it duplicate memories, so the new person only thinks he is the person who lived before.
God does not perpetrate such a fraud. God says He will actually return to life the person who lived before.
God said through the prophet Isaiah: “Your dead will live; Their corpses will rise. You who lie in the dust, awake and shout for joy, For your dew is as the dew of the dawn, And the earth will give birth to the departed spirits.” (Isaiah 26:19; NASB) Shouldn’t we take God at His word?
Jesus Himself said: “But regarding the fact that the dead rise, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the burning bush, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living….” (Mark 12:26; NASB)
Jesus promised Martha: “Your brother will rise from the dead.” (John 11:23; NASB.) Jesus did not say that only a semblance of her brother would be resurrected. He said her brother would rise from the dead. He went on to say: “I am the resurrection and the life; the one who believes in Me will live, even if he dies….” (v. 25) Notice He speaks plainly: “The one who believes in Me will live.”
The Apostle Paul declared: “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.” (1 Thessalonians 4:16; NASB) Again, shouldn’t we assume that God the Holy Spirit inspired Paul to speak the truth?
It is important that we understand that there is an essential identity included in the spirit of life that God gives to each of us. This is because it involves the nature of Christ, which is necessary for Him to be our Savior.
The spirit that the Holy Spirit placed in Mary’s embryo had to include Christ’s divine identity. The Divine Person of the Son of God could not be contained in any new DNA; God is a spirit, not a terrestrial creature. “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” (John 4:24; NASB.) In order for Christ to be qualified logically and legally to take responsibility for all of us, He had to be truly human, the New Adam, the new Head of our race. This was emphasized in Hebrews 2:
“Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, so that through death He might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives. For clearly He does not give help to angels, but He gives help to the descendants of Abraham. Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brothers so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For since He Himself was tempted in that which He has suffered, He is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted.”
Here we see that Christ had to be truly and fully a human, descendent of Adam and Abraham, so He could take responsibility for our race to grant us forgiveness, and also to know how to comfort and enable us to deal with sin on a practical level in our own lives, as we seek to escape the tyranny of sin.
This is in addition to Christ being the actual divine Person who lived before His incarnation as Jesus. As the Apostle John declared in the introduction to his gospel account: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him not even one thing came into being that has come into being….And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us; and we saw His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:1-3, 14; NASB)
Paul declared: “But the fact is, Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep. For since by a man death came, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.” (1 Corinthians 15:20-22; NASB)
Thus Jesus Christ, Who is our humanity—all humanity—is fully God and fully man. He was fond of calling Himself “the Son of man.” (Matthew 8:20; 9:6; 10:23; Mark 2:10; 2:28; Luke 5:24; Luke 6:5; John 1:51; 5:27; 12:23; etc.—255 in total.)
And He acknowledged that He is the Son of God. (See Matthew 26:63, 64; John 10:36; 11:4). See also Mark 1:1: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” And the apostle John declared: “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him, and he in God.” 1 John 4:15; NASB;
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