THE TIME OF REWARD IS NOT UNTIL THE RESURRECTION.
By John Nevins Andrews
JOB, the ancient patriarch, had very distinct views respecting the state of the man in death, and the hope of man in the resurrection. Thus he says: "So man lieth down, and riseth not; till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep. Oh! that thou wouldest hide me in the grave [sheol], that thou wouldest keep me secret, until thy wrath be passed, that thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me! If a man die, shall he live again? all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come. Thou shalt call, and I will answer thee; thou wilt have a desire to the work of thine hands." Job 14:12-15. The dead are asleep, and are not to awaken till the heavens shall depart as a scroll when it is rolled together. Then the Lord shall call, and Job will answer, and his appointed time having come, he shall be changed to immortality as set forth by Paul in 1 Cor. 15:51-54. Job was to wait for this change till his appointed time should come. And thus he speaks of this act of waiting: "If I wait, the grave [sheol] is mine house; I have made my bed in the darkness." Job 17:13. And now he sets forth his hope. "For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God; whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me." Job 19:25-27. Till the time when his Redeemer should stand upon the earth, Job expected to sleep in the dust; and though in the meantime his body should be dissolved, he expected then to awake at the voice of Christ, and in his own flesh, and with his own eyes, to see the God of Heaven. The psalmist speaks thus of death: "For in death there is no remembrance of thee; in the grave [Heb. sheol, the place of the dead] who shall give thee thanks?" Ps. 6:5. Whatever may be understood to constitute death, there is in that state no remembrance of God. And wherever is sheol or hades, for these are the Old and New Testament names of one place, there is in it no one who praises God. He further tells us that "the dead praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence." Ps. 115:17. His former statement, that in death there is no remembrance of God, sufficiently explains the present declaration that the dead praise not the Lord. But he speaks again respecting man's state in death; "Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom is no help. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish." Ps. 146:3, 4. This is very strong language, but it was inspired by the Spirit of God. But has not David been in Heaven ever since his death? And do not all there praise God? The New Testament will answer these questions. Peter testifies that David in his time which was one thousand years after his death had not ascended into Heaven. "For David is not ascended into the heavens." Acts 2:34. And Paul tells us what happened to him at his death: "For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep, and was laid unto his fathers, and saw corruption." Acts 13:36. Now let us hear him state his hope respecting himself. "I shall be satisfied when I awake, with thy likeness." Ps. 17:15. David's hope was therefore precisely that of Job. He expected to sleep the sleep of death. But he also expected to awaken from that sleep at the resurrection of the just. Solomon bears the same testimony with David his father. He says: "For the living know that they shall die; but the dead know not anything, 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 forever in anything that is done under the sun." Eccl. 9:5, 6. It would be difficult to state the case in stronger language than this. Death, in the language of the psalmist, is a state in which the thoughts have perished; in the words of Solomon, the dead know not anything; and their love, and their hatred, and their envy have perished. And when these are gone what remains? So much for his view of death. Now hear him respecting sheol the place of the dead. "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave [sheol] whither thou goest." Eccl. 9:10. Isaiah thus records the language of Hezekiah: "For the grave [sheol] cannot praise thee, death cannot celebrate thee; they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth. The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day; the father to the children shall make known thy truth." Isa. 38:18, 19. This is an explicit statement of the reality of death. Isaiah's doctrine of the resurrection does also imply the reality of the sleep of death. "Thy dead men shall live; together with my dead body shall they arise. AWAKE and sing, ye that dwell in dust; for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead." Isa. 26:19. And the same thing is implied in the words of Daniel: "Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall AWAKE." Dan. 12:2. Our Lord plainly fixes the time of reward and of punishment at the Judgment, and not before it. Thus he says: "For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and THEN he shall REWARD EVERY MAN according to his works." Matt. 16:27. Is it consistent with this text to assert that every righteous man enters glory at death, and that every wicked man when he dies enters the fire of hell? Christ states the time of recompense thus: "But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind; and thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee; for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just." Luke 14:13, 14. But if they enter the presence of God where there is fullness of joy (Ps. 16:11), at the moment of death, do they not receive an infinite reward long before the resurrection? Take our Lord’s account of the final Judgment, in Matt. 25 as a further statement of the time when men shall enter upon their recompense. If the common view respecting man’s condition in death is correct, then the greater part of those on his right hand were summoned from the blessedness of Heaven to be present at the Judgment and receive sentence, and the greater part of those at the left hand were taken from the fire of hell for the same purpose. Yet the language of both the righteous and the wicked is inconsistent with the idea that they had been, the one in glory, and the other in the fire, for ages before this. But the great fact, most important of all in this scripture, is that it clearly indicates that both parties are judged before they are rewarded. And it is hard to state a greater absurdity than the doctrine that those persons who stand respectively at Christ's right hand and his left, are summoned from Heaven and from hell to hear the sentence of the Judge. Our Lord’s explanation of the parable of the wheat and tares is very decisive as to the time when the saints shall enter glory, and when the wicked shall be cast into the fire. He says: "As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world. The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; and shall cast them into a furnace of fire; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father." Matt. 13:40-43. This text fixes the time when the righteous shall shine in the kingdom of God, and the time also when the wicked shall be cast into the fire of hell. This is at the end of the world, and is not at the death of each individual. Christ plainly teaches that hypocrites will not be undeceived with respect to themselves till the great day of final account. "Many will say to me IN THAT DAY, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name have done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you; depart from me, ye that work iniquity." Matt. 7:21, 22. These persons come up to the Judgment self-deceived. But how could this be if they entered perdition at death? He states the same fact on another occasion, and there can be no mistake that he speaks concerning those who were alive when he was upon the earth, and that they come up in the Judgment expecting salvation, a plain proof that they have not been in hell fire during the past eighteen hundred years. Thus he says: "When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door, and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us; and he shall answer and say unto you, I know ye not whence ye are; then shall ye begin to say, We have eaten and drunk in thy presence and thou hast taught in our streets. But he shall say, I tell you, I know you not whence ye are; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity." Luke 13:25-27. Can any one explain these words so that they will harmonize with the doctrine that these persons had been wailing with the damned for ages before they were raised from the dead and summoned to the Judgment? The language plainly implies that they were self-deceived till they were told their true condition by the Judge himself. If death is a state of sleep in which men have no thought, and no knowledge, as the sacred writers expressly affirm, then we can well understand how men who are self-deceived during the present life may come up in the resurrection still self-deceived. But if they spend the period between death and the resurrection in the fire of hell, how can they come up in the Judgment expecting that they are to be admitted to the kingdom of God? J. N. A.