The State of the Dead (Part 4)

January 25th, 2010 by

More Common “Proof Texts”

The parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16 is probably the primary passage that on the surface appears to support the popular notion that judgment, with resulting punishment and reward, is meted out before the resurrection. But this would contradict the rest of Scripture, which says that judgment will take place after the resurrection at the return of Christ (Daniel 12:2; John 5:28,29; Revelation 20:11-15).

Luke 16:
19 There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day:
20 And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores,
21 And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.
22 And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried;
23 And in hell [hades, the state of the dead, equivalent to the Hebrew word sheol] he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.
24 And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.
25 But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.
26 And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.
27 Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father’s house:
28 For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment.
29 Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.
30 And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent.
31 And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.

It is important to recognize that this passage is a story with a moral, and not intended to be a literal discourse on the state of the dead. The whole point of the story is given in verse 31, “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.” Jesus was not telling the story in order to teach what happens after you die. F. W. Farrar wrote, “It is inconceivable to ground the proof of an important theological doctrine on a passage which confessedly abounds in Jewish metaphor” (Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible, vol. 2, p. 1038). G. M. Gwatkin wrote, “Let me only warn you that parable is parable and not literal fact. It is good for the lesson our Lord means to teach, but we cannot take for granted that He means to teach everything He seems to say, for example that in Paradise we shall sit in Abraham’s lap” (The Eye for Spiritual Things, p. 41). And a Hebrew professor, Dr. C. H. Wright, held a similar view, “To suppose it to be our Lord’s object here to give a doctrine of Intermediate State is entirely to misunderstand the parable” (The Intermediate State, p. 278).

Anthony Buzzard, in What Happens When We Die?, p. 52, makes the following observation.

The Pharisees had divided sheol/hades into two compartments to accommodate the righteous “in Abraham’s bosom” and the wicked undergoing “curses, scourges, and torments” (I Enoch 22:9-13). There are clear points of contact between the language of the parable in Luke and the teaching of the Pharisees. Yet despite the borrowing of phraseology, the parable nowhere specifically states that the scenes of reward and punishment described in verses 22-26 occur before the resurrection. Though the story may be made to fit the Platonic system of immediate survival at death, it is highly significant that Lazarus and the rich man are not seen as disembodied spirits or souls; but the parable (i.e., at least verses 19 to 26) may also be read quite satisfactorily with the Biblical scheme in mind. We do not therefore need to say that Jesus “accommodated” his story to the Pharisaic doctrine of the afterlife. An exact program of events is in any case hardly to be expected in a parable. Its purpose lies elsewhere. To use this story alone as the basis of one’s understanding of what happens at death, when so much clear instruction is given in Scripture, is scarcely justifiable.

He also writes that it would be “quite possible to understand the entire conversation between the dead as poetic imagery similar to the passage in Isaiah 14:11 where the dead are represented as speaking to each other” (What Happens When We Die?, p. 53). In any case the passage cannot be used to prove that Jesus endorsed the Platonic view of life after death as a disembodied spirit. (Listen to a detailed handling of this by Sean Finnegan on The Byte Show.)

In I Samuel 28 we read of a supposed appearance of Samuel after his death. But the woman which Saul consulted had a familiar spirit, according to verses 7 and 8, which impersonated Samuel. Having familiar spirits or consulting anyone who did was condemned in the Law of Moses. In the vision Samuel seemed to be speeking for God, even predicting Saul’s defeat and death. But if God actually wanted to deliver a message to Saul, would He have used a method which He Himself had condemned? Familiar spirits are lying spirits, and continue to give the illusion of communication with the dead, which is contrary to the truth of God’s Word.

Frequently the workings of the devil and of demons will appear to be on behalf of the true God. Paul says that even “Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light” (II Corinthians 11:14). There are those even today who claim to have been to heaven and seen the dead living with and worshipping God and Jesus. But if a vision is contrary to the clear teaching of Scripture, can it be truly of God? We are warned of false prophets and teachers, and told specifically to “believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God” (I John 4:1). The devil is a master of deception, and one of his primary goals is to further his original lie, that man does not truly die.

When Peter, James and John went up the mountain with Jesus and witnessed the transfiguration in Matthew 17:1-9, they saw Moses and Elijah talking with Jesus. Many people assume that this means they were alive in heaven and came down at this time. However, it is described as a vision in verse 9, and so cannot be used to prove that Moses and Elijah are actually alive. Hebrews 11:13 and 39 both state that the Old Testament heroes of faith died, having not received the promises, and John 3:13 states that no one has ascended up to heaven except Jesus.

At the Transfiguration, Peter, James, and John saw a vision (Matthew 17:9) of Jesus in his glory, accompanied by Moses and Elijah. It was a vision of Christ’s glory which will come to pass when he returns to reign in his Kingdom. We know this because Peter specifically states in II Peter 1:16-18 that they were eyewitnesses of his majesty, related to his power and coming (parousia).

Was Elijah translated into heaven without dying, as many believe? According to II Kings 2:1 and 11, he was taken up “into heaven” by a whirlwind. But in the Bible, “heaven” is used in more than one way. Sometimes it refers to the dwelling place of God as in John 3:13, but sometimes it just means the space above the earth, as in “the fowls of heaven” (Genesis 1:20, Revelation 19:17, etc.). The context must determine which meaning is meant.

II Kings 2:
15 And when the sons of the prophets which were to view at Jericho saw him, they said, The spirit of Elijah doth rest on Elisha. And they came to meet him, and bowed themselves to the ground before him.
16 And they said unto him, Behold now, there be with thy servants fifty strong men; let them go, we pray thee, and seek thy master: lest peradventure the Spirit of the LORD hath taken him up, and cast him upon some mountain, or into some valley. And he said, Ye shall not send.
17 And when they urged him till he was ashamed, he said, Send. They sent therefore fifty men; and they sought three days, but found him not.

The sons of the prophets did not believe that Elijah was gone to a place “beyond the sky” or that he was in the presence of God. If they had believed that, they would not have been looking for him just in case the Spirit of the Lord had “taken him up, and cast him upon some mountain, or into some valley.” King Jehoram receives a letter from him in II Chronicles 21:12. When you compare the chronology of kings outlined in II Kings 1-3 with II Chronicles 21, you see that this was after Elijah was taken up in the whirlwind. He was taken up and brought somewhere, but the Bible does not say where he was taken. The historian Josephus describes it that way as well. “Elijah disappeared from men and no one knows to this day of his end” (Antiq. ix. 2:2). Eventually he died just as everyone else does.

Another Old Testament figure who is thought to have been translated directly to heaven is Enoch. Hebrews 11:5 says that he was “translated, that he should not see death.” But the writer of Psalm 89:48 asks, rhetorically, “What man is he that liveth, and shall not see death?” And Hebrews 9:27 says that “…it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.” There is no exception to this; everybody dies. Genesis 5:24 tells us that Enoch “walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.” The use of the phrase “was not” does not imply that he was “caught up to heaven.” It is frequently used in the Old Testament as a euphemistic way of saying that someone was dead (Joseph’s brothers and father both used it this way referring to the presumed death of Joseph. See Genesis 42:32,36.)

Genesis simply says that God “took” Enoch. Hebrews 11:5 tells us that God translated him. The Greek word for “translated” is metatithemi which is translated “carried over” in Acts 7:16 and “removed” in Galatians 1:6. The word simply means that, like Elijah, he was carried from one place over to another. We are told that God did this so that he would not “see” death. The word used here is eido which can mean literally “to see” with the eyes, or figuratively “to know or perceive.” As is so often the case, the meaning is determined by the context, as well as other related Scriptures. Hebrews 11, after talking about Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and Sara, says in verse 13, “These all died in faith.” Therefore Enoch is included in those who have died, which also fits with Hebrews 9:27, I Corinthians 15:22, and Psalm 89:48 (everybody dies) as well as John 3:13 (no one has ascended to heaven except Jesus Christ). So Enoch must have been translated so that he would not literally see death with his eyes. Both he and Elijah are dead and awaiting the resurrection.

When Jesus said that God is not the God of the dead but of the living (Mark 12:27), it was in the context of the resurrection (note especially verses 18, 23, 25, 26). Yet many commentators still take it out of context and try to use it to prove that the dead are alive in heaven. Similarly, some take the reference to the “great cloud of witnesses” in Hebrews 12:1 out of context and use it to refer to the dead in heaven. But it is simply referring to the example of faith of those spoken of in chapter 11. The Scriptures must be considered as a whole, and allowed to speak for themselves. The Platonic concepts of an immortal soul and life after death as a disembodied spirit have no place in Christian doctrine. The promises made to Abraham will have their fulfillment when he is resurrected at the end of this age when Christ returns to set up his Kingdom. At that time the dead in Christ shall be raised, and the rest of the dead will be raised after the thousand year reign. Until then, the dead remain unconscious in a state of non-existance. This is the clear teaching of Scripture, despite Satan’s continual attempts to undermine it.

For further reading:

3 Comments »

3 Responses to “The State of the Dead (Part 4)”

  1. on 26 Jan 2010 at 1:47 pm1 Brian Keating

    Great post Mark. From my experience, most mainstream Christians simply point to the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man, as proof of “eternal conscious torment” – without being aware that Abraham can’t possibly be in heaven (due to John 3:13).

    Do you have any insight into Rev 20:10? That verse describes what happens to the devil (as well as the beast and the false prophet) after the millennium:

    10And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.

    Young’s Literal Translation uses “to the ages of the ages”, rather than “for ever and ever”:

    10and the Devil, who is leading them astray, was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where [are] the beast and the false prophet, and they shall be tormented day and night — to the ages of the ages.

    From what I understand, the phrase “ages of the ages” might just mean “a very long time”, instead of “forever”. Do you have any info about that?

  2. on 26 Jan 2010 at 2:22 pm2 Mark C.

    I have also read that the phrase means “to the ages of the ages.” The word “ever” there is the same word aion that is translated eternal and everlasting, but really mean enduring for an age. How long the age is, is determined by the context, but it doesn’t necessarily mean “without end” the way we think of it.

  3. on 17 Feb 2010 at 3:40 pm3 Jarvis C.

    I am having a tough time making sense of Heb 12:23, specifically, with the reference in that verse to “spirits of righteous men made perfect.” I have consulted many commentaries, but they all explain this in a dualistic fashion. Your thoughts would be very appreciated.

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