THE SPIRIT SHALL RETURN TO GOD.
By C. W. Stone
“Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was; and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.” Eccl. 12:7. This text is confidently quoted by many for the purpose of proving that the essential part of our being, the real man, goes immediately into the presence of God when the body dies. But this is asserting far more than the text declares; for it simply says that at that time “the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.” What is the spirit? Those who rest upon this text to prove that men go to Heaven at death must first show by the Scriptures that the spirit is the real, intelligent, thinking, responsible being residing within the body,—a task which they will find it impossible to accomplish. The first seven verses refer to the wearing out and breaking down of an old person. The seventh contains the statement of the utter dissolution at death. God made man of the dust of the earth, and to the lifeless man he added the breath of life, and the man lived—“became a living soul.” Gen. 2:7. Death reverses this process. God takes away the breath, or spirit, and men die, and return to dust. It is just the same in the death of all animals. Speaking of the cattle, the birds, the goats, the young lions, all the beasts of the field, and man, the psalmist says, “Thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust.” Ps. 104:29. The word rendered breath here is rendered spirit in Eccl. 12:7. God takes away the spirit of man and of beast alike. Alike, then, the spirit of man and beast goes at death to God who gave it. That is proper; for, “they have all one breath,” or spirit, and “all go unto one place.” Eccl. 3:19, 20. The word rendered breath in verse 19 is the same that is rendered spirit in verse 21, and in our text. Does this prove that the intelligent part of the dumb beast goes to Heaven at death? It does, or else it does not prove that man goes there at death. For many reasons we incline to the latter conclusion. “Thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust.” This text tells where they go; and so does the following: “All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.” Eccl. 3:20. And so do these: “If he set his heart upon man, if he gather unto himself his spirit and his breath, all flesh shall perish together, and man shall turn again to dust.” Job. 34:14, 15. “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” Gen. 3:19. These texts declare that man at death shall return to the dust. But men say that Eccl. 12:7 teaches that man at death goes to Heaven. If so, then the Bible contradicts itself. But it is not so. “The spirit shall return to God who gave it.” If it returns to God, then it came from God; for nothing can be said to return where it has not been before. And it is so stated in the words, “Who gave it.” God gave this spirit, it came from him, it is to go back to him. Whatever it is, it is the same thing that came from him. But it is claimed that the spirit that returns to God at death is the real, thinking man. Then it was the real, thinking man when God “gave it,” when it came from him. Therefore every “thinking man” alive to-day, or dwelling in the body, should be able to “think” back to that time when he was with God, before he came from God. I never had the pleasure of meeting a man who could remember quite back to the date of his birth; but if this text proves what some would have it prove, we should all be able to remember just how it used to seem in Heaven before we came from God, and how new and strange were our sensations when we found ourselves encased in the bodies of little infants. But no. There was a time when we began to think. The thoughts were infantile and weak. We cannot even remember them. The mind growing, at two or three years some thoughts become so deep as to make a lasting impression, and we remember them. The mind grows with the brain. The thoughts continue while the brain acts. This ceases at death, and the thoughts perish. Ps. 146:4. The breath, the spirit, returns to God who gave it. The breath of life goes forth into the great storehouse whence God took it to give to man. It goes out into the atmosphere, and does not come back,—we “breathe our last,” and are dead. “His breath goeth forth: in that very day his thoughts perish.” Ps. 146:4.