Death Is Dreadful

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Dec 12, 1911

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 38, No. 49.

Death Is Dreadful

“Death Is Dreadful.”—A late book seems to be devoted to the teaching that death is a good thing. One of its characters speaks of the passing away of a deacon, and says, “Poor Deacon Everett is dead.” Another asks: “Why do you say, ‘poor man’? Do you think he has gone to hell? . . . You surely believe he has gone to heaven, don’t you?” And the reply is, “Why, of course I do; but death is dreadful, no matter how you look at it.” And then the questioner asks: “Is it religious to think it dreadful? If it is, what is the use of religion?” And so on the conversation goes. The whole idea is carried that the Bible teaches that the one who dies goes to a place of punishment or reward at death—a doctrine which is utterly foreign to the Word of God and the religion of the Lord Jesus Christ.

“Death is a dreadful thing, no matter how you look at it.” The instinct of one’s nature is more than all false theology that has been taught through the centuries. Since the first lie told in Eden, the devil has endeavored to induce man to believe that he (man) is immortal; but the whole history of the world, the instinct of the race, the habiliments of mourning—in fact, all connected with death, except the belief of a few half-insane devotees—are strong confirmation of the truth of the Bible that death is cessation of existence. The Bible makes the devil responsible for death (Heb. 2:14), for death came in consequence of sin. “Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.” James 1:15.

And this death the Bible clearly calls an enemy: “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” 1 Cor. 15:26. This will be at Christ’s second coming. We have no intimation that there should be no mourning in connection with it. Jesus Himself, looking down through the ages, in sympathy with humanity wept at the grave of Lazarus; and the blessed assurance to the Christian is that in that new earth, created by the power of God, which will be filled by beings new created, or changed to immortality, by the same power, “There shall be no more death.” See Rev. 21:1-7. It is a great deal better to trust the Bible than to depend on the vagaries of fiction, the utterly false conclusions of human philosophy, the perversions of a false theology, or the unscriptural teachings of “hymnology.” Of course if the unscriptural theory of the immortality of the soul is true, persons ought to look on the death of the good as a real joy; but the instincts of humanity and truth are against it.