A FALSE HOPE by T.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jan 24, 1900

A FALSE HOPE.

By T.

AMONG the papers found on the person of a man who recently committed suicide in New York City was an editorial on death. One sentence in the editorial said, "You die and are immediately transported to your happy home in some distant star."

How much influence this editorial had in causing the man to commit self-murder we know not. But this we do know, no man is transported anywhere at death. Death is not life; and the idea that a man is possessed of an immortal spirit, that leaves the body when it dies, and that this spirit knows more after the body is dead than it ever did before, is a relic of heathenism. It is no part of Christianity, and is nowhere to be found in the Bible.

The Word of God plainly says, "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him." John 3:36. Then only those who believe on the Son of God have everlasting life. And when men do not have everlasting life, they do not, in the very nature of things, possess an immortal spirit that can leave the body at death. This one plain scripture makes that fact perfectly clear.

Sin brought death into the world. But "our Saviour, Jesus Christ" "hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel." Then the light of life and immortality is seen only in the Gospel. Men may seek for it elsewhere, but they only grope in darkness. And every believer has everlasting life given to him, because Christ has abolished the death that is leading him on to destruction. And this life that Christ gives us is eternal life, because He has no other kind of life to give.

The interval between death and the resurrection is spoken of as a sleep, and those who are believers are made fully immortal at the last great day. Paul sets this forth fully in the following words:—

"Behold, I show you a mystery: 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 shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" 1 Cor. 15:51-55.

Note some of the clear statements in the foregoing text. "We shall not all sleep." That is, the believers who are alive on the earth when the Lord comes, will not go down in death. But even tho we do not all sleep, yet "we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump." And observe again the positive promise, "The trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we [that is, the living] shall be changed." Then this change from mortality to immortality, from corruptible to incorruptible, is "at the last trump."

The Scriptures plainly show that the wicked have no life aside from this transient mortal life of the present, and, therefore, they can not possess an immortal spirit. And the righteous receive their immortality and incorruptibility at the coming of Christ and the resurrection.

How much misery and error men would be saved from if they would only believe the Bible! T.