Question by John Norton Loughborough

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, Cal. · Aug 12, 1875

Question.

By John Norton Loughborough

A READER inquires the meaning of the text, "If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death." John 8:51.

The death mentioned here must mean the second death. Of the first death, or dissolution of the body, it is said, "As in Adam all die." 1 Cor. 15:22. "It is appointed unto man once to die." Heb. 9:27. There have been two exceptions in the past to this rule, the cases of Enoch and Elijah. Of the future we read: "We which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord." 1 Thess. 4:15–17.

"Behold, I show you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed." 1 Cor. 15:51, 52.

We conclude, therefore, that, except in the cases of those who are alive and prepared to meet Christ at his coming and will never taste death, there is only one way in which it can be said that those who "keep Christ's sayings shall never see death," and that is they shall never die the second death.

J. N. L.