Biblical Common Sense – Death – Death is an End!
February 10th, 2012 by Ron S.
Here’s the next installment (Part 3) on death.
Biblical Common Sense – Death – Death is an End!
Humanity has had enough experience with death to know that when a person dies, everything that they are in this world comes to an end. Death is the complete and utter cessation of every quality of being alive. This is not just common sense, it is fact. We see it plainly evident from everything we encounter in the human experience and everything we have observed in the living world around us. Yet this is not what people have come to accept about the Bible. The Greek conception of the immortal soul has created a twisted view of Scripture that promotes an innate ability of man to live on past death in some way. That his existence does not come to a halt at the grave. But does this in anyway fit the facts of what God describes in His written word? No. Scripture never says that the dead go on living in some other unseen plain of existence. Biblically speaking, we are consciously non-existent and would remain that way if God failed to use His power to bring us back at some point in time. Consider these Scriptural passages of insight from the book of Job:
Job 14:1-2 “Man, who is born of woman is short-lived and full of turmoil, Like a flower he comes forth and withers, He flees like a shadow and does not remainâ€.
Job 14: 10-12 “But man dies and lies prostrate. Man expires, and where is he? As water evaporates from the sea, And a river becomes parched and dried up, So man lies down and does not rise, Until the heavens be no more, He will not awake nor be aroused out of his sleep.â€
Later, King David (one of God’s most loved servants) in his Psalms describes death plainly in absolute, non-existent terms with verses such as:
Psalm 6:5 “For in death there is no remembrance of thee: in the grave who shall give thee thanks?”
Psalm 30:9 “What profit is there in my blood, when I go down to the pit? Shall the dust praise thee? shall it declare thy truth?”
Psalm 88:10-11 “Wilt thou shew wonders to the dead? shall the dead arise and praise thee? Selah. Shall thy loving kindness be declared in the grave? or thy faithfulness in destruction? Shall thy wonders be known in the dark? and thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?”
Psalm 115:17 “The dead praise not the LORD, neither any that go down into silence”
Psalm 146:4 (KJV) “His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish”
And one of the greatest thinkers of the Bible – King Solomon, wrote probably the most clear and straightforward truth regarding the condition of the dead in these three writings in Ecclesiastes:
Eccl. 3:19-20 “For the fate of the sons of men and the fate of the beasts is the same. As one dies so dies the other; indeed they all have the same breath and there is no advantage for man over beast, for all is vanity. All go to the same place. All came from the dust and all return to the dust.â€
Eccl. 9:4-6 “But for him who is joined to all the living there is hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion. 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 in anything done under the sun.”
Eccl. 9:10 “Whatever your hand 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.”
The plain truth of these verses cannot be easily side-stepped or wished away by those looking to hold-on to the traditional view that man is an immortal creature that instantly moves on to another plain of existence once he “passes away”. There is NO “passing on” or going anywhere but to become “worm food” in the grave. The “DEAD KNOW NOTHING”. We do not exist anymore. The organic “earth” elements that God designed mankind out of, is exactly what we turn back into. When that “breath of life” – that God given energy of life that He gave Adam and has been passed down generation to generation each time sperm fertilizes egg – leaves us at death, we are nothing but a rotting corpse that turns to goo and eventually in time becomes “dust”. The EXACT thing that God promised back in Gen. 3:19! The fact of this is further correlated again with what Job says about God and HIS spirit!
Job 33:4 “The Spirit of God has made me, And the breath of the Almighty gives me life.”
Job 34:14-15 “If He should determine to do so, If He should gather to Himself His Spirit and His Breath, All flesh would perish together, And man would return to the dust.”
We exist and are alive because God’s animating life force is within us. When our body dies, HIS breath, HIS energy returns to Him. We come to an complete end and our only hope is for God to remember us (as He has promised) and bring us back to resurrected life at some point in the future.
Eccl. 12:7 “then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it.”
Isaiah 26:19 “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.
Biblical Common Sense Series:
1. Intro
Jesus:
3. Jesus – “This is MY Sonâ€
4. Jesus – The Anointed of God
5. Jesus – The Messiah is suppose to be…
8. Jesus – Not Equal, Not the Same!
Death:
9. Death – Patterns of Adam & Eve
10. Death – Who Possesses Immortality?
11. Death – Death is an End! (current page)
12. Death – You Shall Surely NOT Die!
13. Death – Usage of the Sleep Metaphor