What Is Death? by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jul 31, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 29.

What Is Death?

By Editor

DEATH is a "cessation of life." Webster says it is that state wherein there is "an entire cessation of the vital functions." Hence, life must precede death; there can be no cessation of the vital functions where no vital functions have existed. It is not strictly correct to speak of a stone as "dead matter," for it never died; it never took on the condition of death; it never had life. Every one can see that there can be no death where there is no process or act of dying.

Then the question arises, Can there be eternal or everlasting death without an everlasting act of dying? According to the philosophy of some people, there cannot. But we think there can. This is an objection which is often urged against those who believe that death is the penalty for sin. They say that a person cannot long suffer the pangs of death, and that his punishment is therefore of brief duration, as it must cease when his consciousness and sufferings cease. This may appear to them to be very good philosophy, but is scarcely good sense, and certainly not according to the teachings of the Scriptures.

The apostle Paul speaks of "eternal judgment." But we cannot think that he means that the process of judgment must be going on eternally. That is not the truth. Eternal judgment is that of which the consequences are eternal; it is a judgment of eternal destinies. The act of judging any individual must necessarily cease at some time; the consequences or the result of the act will never cease. And thus it is of eternal death. A person will never die unless he sometime reaches the point where he is dead; where the act of dying ceases. "The death that never dies," is a figment of a poet's fancy; at least, as the phrase is generally used. If by it were meant that the condition of death, into which the wicked will be brought as the penalty of their sins, will never cease, that from that death there will be no resurrection, then we would accept it as the truth of the Scriptures.

The idea of punishing a dead man with death would be an absurdity; and if a court should sit on a dead man's case, and resolve to punish him, the decision would be a nullity, unless the man were restored to life that he might be punished. All laws recognize the fact that a man must be conscious of the infliction of the penalty in order to his punishment. What would be thought of the court which would fine a man one thousand dollars for an offense, and then order the officer to go and abstract that amount from the coffers of the criminal, but not to let him know it? Such an order would only excite the derision of all sensible people.

With the infliction of death upon the ungodly, the Lord has threatened "tribulation and anguish;" Rom. 2:9. Or, as the Saviour says of "the children of the wicked one," "And shall cast them into a furnace of fire; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth." Matt. 13:38, 42, 49, 50. See also 2 Pet. 3:7, and Rev. 20:10-15. This tribulation and anguish is in the "furnace of fire," or "lake of fire and brimstone," which is the second death. Thousands of wicked ones go to the grave, of whom the man of God says, "there are no bands in their death; but their strength is firm. They are not in trouble like other men, neither are they plagued like other men." Ps. 73:4, 5. To say that such have received their punishment because they are dead is to make a farce of the most solemn threatenings of God's word. Many, very many, of them have died as the patriarch said of the wicked, "One dieth in his full strength, being wholly at ease and quiet;" and the threatenings of tribulation and anguish upon such will be fulfilled only when that other scripture is fulfilled: "Do ye not know their tokens, that the wicked is reserved to the day of destruction? they shall be brought forth to the day of wrath." Job 21:23, 29, 30. The Saviour said they shall "come forth . . . to the resurrection of damnation." John 5:29; for "there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust." Acts 24:15. They are willing to take awful risks who will quarrel with such plain statements of the word of God as these.

Now it must be conceded that no one can be "brought forth to the day of wrath," and be visited with "tribulation and anguish," and not be conscious of it. There is no tribulation, no anguish, where there is no consciousness; and it is equally evident that the tribulation and anguish must cease when the penalty of death is fully inflicted; when all the vital functions have forever ceased. And then returns the self-same question, though not in the same words, yet to the same intent: If tribulation and anguish are necessarily connected with the infliction of punishment on the wicked, must not the tribulation and anguish endure as long as the punishment endures? We answer, No; the tribulation and anguish are inseparable from the process of dying; but the process of dying eventuates in death; and when death has taken place, the process has ceased; anguish is past; consciousness is lost. But is the person still under the effects of the sentence? Or, in other words, is he still under punishment? Yes; and will be to everlasting; he will be, as long as the death endures to which he was sentenced.

It is easy to see that a person may be conscious of suffering under the sentence of an eternal judgment, without being eternally conscious of suffering. He may be conscious of suffering the pains of eternal death without being eternally conscious of the pains of death. And therefore he may be conscious of suffering the anguish of eternal punishment, without being eternally conscious in that anguish. Indeed, if that eternal punishment be eternal death, or everlasting destruction, it must be impossible that he should be eternally conscious, for, in that case, death could never take place—he would never be destroyed.

Peter says that God knows how "to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished." 2 Peter 2:9. Some say that past generations of the wicked have already been punished, as they are already dead; and the wages of sin is death. But if that be so, then the generations of the righteous have also been punished in like manner, for they are dead also. But we need not argue the case; the argument is all made out in the inspired word. Thus:

1. Paul said, at Athens, that God has appointed a day in which he will judge the world. But if the wicked dead are already punished, there was no propriety in Paul placing the judgment of the world in the future; the longer part of it was then in the past.

2. He said the Lord would judge the quick, the living, and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom. According to that view this declaration could only be partly true, for the dead are already judged, and true wherein it is true only to a quite limited extent.

3. Peter said that the heavens and earth which are now are reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. This language can have no force according to the view we call in question, for the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men has been in existence ever since the day of Cain's death.

4. The book of Revelation says that "the time of the dead, that they should be judged," comes under the seventh trumpet, at the very close of the gospel dispensation. If that view be correct, this text cannot be true, for they have been already judged, and as to the wicked dead, they have been both judged and punished.

We could greatly multiply such evidences, but there is no need. They who deny a few plain Scripture declarations will find no difficulty in denying many. We believe that the lake of fire, the second death, awaits all the ungodly, and that "it shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment," than for those who reject the greater light of the present day. Matt. 10:15. Thus believing, "we persuade men."