p. 8 | Our Bible Reading

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jul 18, 1911

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 38, No. 28.

Our Bible Reading

Man in Death

1. What question of the ages did the Idumean patriarch give voice to? If a man die, shall he live again? Job 14: 14.

2. What is said of man's creation? God created man in His own image. Gen. 1: 27. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. Gen. 2: 7.

Note.—There is nothing in these scriptures upon which to build the theory of man's deathlessness. "Image" indicates physical and moral likeness, but it does not necessarily mean immortality more than it means omniscience, or omnipotence. God "only hath immortality." Why invest man with that attribute of Deity, and withhold from him others equally deific? Why seek to confirm the falsehood of Satan, "Ye shall not surely die"? Man was made of the dust, a perfect physical being, a soul, before he received "the breath of life." That life from God—not an entity—made the man a living soul.

3. What was shown him as the consequence of his sin? In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. Gen. 2: 17.

4. How does Solomon describe man's dissolution? Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit [the breath of life] shall return unto God who gave it. Eccl. 12: 7.

Note.—That spirit is not an entity put into man, consciously existing before and after it leaves the body; it is life, given to man and beast alike.

5. What is David's testimony to the condition of man in death? For in death there is no remembrance of Thee. Ps. 6: 5. The dead praise not the Lord, neither any that do down into silence. Ps. 115: 17. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish. Ps. 146: 4.

6. What is the testimony of Job? His sons come to honor, and he knoweth it not; and they are brought low, but he perceiveth it not of them. Job 14: 21.

7. To what does Solomon the Wise bear witness? The dead know not anything. . . . Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is NOW PERISHED. Eccl. 9: 5, 6.

8. What does Peter say? He is both dead and buried, and his sepulcher is with us unto this day. . . . For David is not ascended into the heavens. Acts 2: 29, 34.

9. What does this absolutely negative condition demand? If there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen. . . . Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. See 1 Cor. 15: 13-22.

10. When will this resurrection take place? 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. 1 Thess. 4: 16. All that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation. John 5: 28, 29.

Note.—Thus is the question answered—if a man die, he shall live again, through the resurrection only, at the second coming of Christ.