An evidently candid correspondent in Mississippi, who presumably may represent many others, writes us as follows:—
Believing you to be fair in your exegesis of the Scriptures, and that you want to receive and advocate truth, and nothing but truth, will you let a reader of the SIGNS make a little dissertation on a recent comment by your paper? You say: “That Moses was raised from the dead is inferred by Jude 9.” Logicians tell us that inference and analogies prove nothing. These are stock arguments with Sunday-keepers, Rhanists, and Pedo-baptists. You say: “It was literally Moses and Elijah on the mount. Jesus glorified represented His second coming; Moses raised from the dead represented the sleeping saints who will be raised at Christ’s second coming; and Elijah represented the living righteous, who will be translated at Christ’s second coming without tasting death.” “Jesus glorified” would certainly represent the resurrectional state, and Elijah translated would represent the righteous translated when Christ comes. Moses represents the intermediate state between death and the resurrection. Now the burden of proof is mine, that Moses has never been raised from the dead or was not before Christ’s resurrection. Christ was to be the first that should rise from the dead (Acts 26:23), not the first in preeminence only, but the first in order, to eternal life. Many bodies of the saints were raised, but after Christ’s resurrection (Matt. 27:53), “women received their dead raised to life again,” and Christ raised some, but not to eternal life, for they went about with their earthly bodies, and died again. Christ is “the first-begotten of the dead,” “the first-born from the dead,” and “the first-fruits of them that slept.” “Every man in his own order, Christ the first-fruits.” Now the first-begotten and first-born are always first in order. “I am Esau thy first-born,” so with first-fruits (Deut. 26:2). If Moses was raised from the dead, it was among the saints who were raised after Christ’s resurrection. Here were three in glorious appearance on the mount, representing the three states of the dead, or, rather, three states of existence beyond this life: “for God is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living.” Moses and Elijah had come from heaven, Paradise, where Christ said the converted thief should be with him the day of their death, in which place Paul said “he had rather depart and be with Christ; for to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.” From Paradise will God bring the saints with Christ when He comes (1 Thess. 4:14), even those whose bodies sleep in Him.
You say, “The dead know not anything.” The same is said of the living (1 Sam. 20:39), and must be taken in a limited sense. The Bible does not contradict itself, but needs to be correctly construed. And a person to do this must be spiritual-minded, honest, and taught of the Lord, and not tied down by a patent theory. Now, brother, if I am crooked and you can straighten me, do so with the Scriptures, which thoroughly furnish us, and not try to do it by inference.
A Sunday-keeper said to me, “Christ appeared to His disciples on the first day of the week, and we must infer that it was to be a holy day.”
We might infer the devil disputed over the body of Moses because it fell on his territory, but it would only be an inference and no more prove it than the dispute about his body proves his resurrection. Yours fraternally, D. W. Leath.
Here is the scripture which speaks of the transfiguration:—
(27) “But I tell you of a truth, there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God. (28) And it came to pass about an eight days after these sayings, he took Peter and John and James, and went up into a mountain to pray. (29) And as he prayed, the fashion of His countenance was altered, and His raiment was white and glistening. (30) And, behold, there talked with Him two men, which were Moses and Elias; (31) who appeared in glory, and spake of His decease which He should accomplish at Jerusalem. (32) But Peter and they that were with Him were heavy with sleep; and when they were awake, they saw His glory, and the two men that stood with Him. (33) And it came to pass, as they departed from Him, Peter said unto Jesus, Master, it is good for us to be here; and let us make three tabernacles: one for Thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias; not knowing what he said. (34) While he thus spake, there came a cloud, and overshadowed them; and they feared as they entered into the cloud. (35) And there came a voice out of the cloud, saying, This is My beloved Son; hear Him.” Luke 9:27–35.
Let us state the matter briefly and clearly.
1. What was shown on the Mount of Transfiguration was a representation in miniature of “the Son of man coming in His kingdom” (Matt. 16:28); “the kingdom of God come with power” (Mark 9:1); “the kingdom of God” (verse 27, above). That kingdom of the Son of man is not now set up, nor will it be till He comes again. “At His appearing and His kingdom.” 2 Tim. 4:1. “When the Son of man shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory.” Matt. 25:31.
The appearance on the mount was to convince the disciples of the truth of what Jesus had repeatedly told them of His coming suffering, leading to future glory. And so Peter says: “We have not followed cunningly-devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eye-witnesses of His majesty. For He received from God the Father honor and glory, when there came such a voice to Him from the excellent glory, This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with Him in the holy mount.” 2 Peter 1:16–18. The transfiguration was therefore a representation and pledge of Christ’s coming. And had the disciples listened to the conversation between Christ and the tried servants of God, they would have known “of His decease which He should accomplish at Jerusalem.” Verse 31 above. The transfiguration being a representation of Christ’s coming and kingdom, it follows that it was not a symbol of the intermediate state.
2. At the second coming of Christ, when He, having closed His work as priest, begins His eternal reign, His people will be divided into two classes: (1) Those who will be raised from the dead; (2) those who will be translated without seeing death. “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. 4:16, 17. “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 [the living] shall be changed.” 1 Cor. 15:51, 52. It will not be until the coming of Christ and the resurrection that the dead live. Matt. 16:27.
3. We have, then, the glorified Christ, the King; Elijah, a representation of those who will be translated at Christ’s coming; and Moses, the representative of those who sleep in Jesus, but will then be raised from the dead. These were God’s pledges to His people under the will before the Testator died.
4. With this Jude 9 agrees: “Yet Michael the Archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee.” Michael, the archangel (“who is like God”), is Jesus Christ. Compare Dan. 10:21; 12:1; 1 Thess. 4:16; John 5:29. He is the Prince of Life. Acts 3:15. Satan is the prince of death (Heb. 2:14), and claims as his prisoners those who enter the grave’s embrace (Isa. 14:17). In the nature of the case, the common inference would be that the dispute was over Moses’ resurrection. In the light of all the foregoing scriptures, the inevitable conclusion would be the same. The Son of God gave all in the beginning, but as the messenger of God He had not yet met the fulness of the sacrifice; therefore He speaks not in His own authority, but the Father’s. “The Lord rebuke thee.” Did God do it? or did the devil retain Moses?
Against the above our correspondent brings such expressions as “the First-begotten of the dead,” “the First-born from the dead,” “the First-fruits of them that slept,” with the statement that the first-begotten and first-born are always first in order. “I am Esau thy first-born.” But in this our correspondent did not look far enough. These terms are used to denote preeminence in rank as well as priority in time. Esau said, “I am Esau thy first-born” (Gen. 27:19), but the Lord says, “Israel is My son, even My first-born” (Ex. 4:22). Joseph’s first-born in time was Manasseh (Gen. 41:51), but the Lord says, “Ephraim is My first-born” (Jer. 31:9). To the first-born belonged the priesthood, but it was taken from them and given to the Levites. Num. 3:41, 45. So God made Christ of the seed of David, His first-born (Ps. 89:27), and He became the first-fruits (1 Cor. 15:20), because (1) it was through Him and by virtue of His power and righteousness that all others live; (2) He was the preëminent One of those who passed through death’s portals; (3) He was the first that “by the resurrection of the dead should proclaim light both to the people and to the Gentiles” (Acts 26:23, R.V.); not the first that should arise, but the first that by rising from the dead should proclaim the Gospel.
“God is the God of the living,” not the dead. His children may sleep in death now, but He does not count them dead, not because they are not truly dead, but because in His purpose they live; that is, they will be raised from the dead.” Luke 20:37, 38; Rom. 4:17.
As to the thief on the cross and our Lord’s promise to him, it will be sufficient to the Bible student to note: (1) Paradise is where God is. Rev. 2:7; 22:1, 2. (2) Jesus did not go to the Father until some time after His resurrection, hence had not ascended to Paradise. John 20:17. (3) In all probability the thief did not die that day, as a victim of the cross lived oftentimes for many hours; and the thieves’ legs were broken at the close of that day so as to hasten their death. John 19:32, 33; Mark 15:44. (4) The children of faith are not rewarded at death, and will not receive their reward until Christ comes. Matt. 16:27.
As to the condition of the dead, it is not based on a mere statement as to man’s mentality, but as to his consciousness. Let the reader consider the following texts, and others similar: “In death there is no remembrance of Thee.” Ps. 6:5. “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.” Ps. 146:3, 4. “For the living know that they shall die; but the dead know not anything. . . . Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished.” Eccl. 9:5, 6. “Let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried.”7“For David is not ascended into the heavens.” Acts 2:29, 34.
If it be said that the above texts refer to the body, but the references to the penitent thief and to Moses refer to the soul, it is sufficient to reply that this is mere juggling with the words of God. When Inspiration says Moses it means Moses. Moses was as truly on the mount as was Elijah. David, the whole man, was dead. To claim that man does not die, contrary to the express statement of Scripture, is to deny the necessity of the Lord’s coming and resurrection. It lays the basis for belief in Spiritualism, and all the demon-worship, ancestor-worship, and saint-worship of paganism and Papacy.
Let God be true. There is beautiful harmony in His Word unperverted. Sin came into our world, and death by sin, and “so death passed upon all men,” soul and body. But in God’s love in Jesus Christ there is life, life for all who will receive Him, but eternal death for all who will reject Him. In Him alone is eternal life, even as in Him alone is everlasting righteousness.