PERPLEXING TEXTS ON MAN’S NATURE.
THE whole tenor of all the positive teaching of Scripture is that man is "mortal;" that the whole man dies, that he is unconscious in death, that the dead know not anything, the punishment of sin is death, extinction of being, and that some day there will be a clean universe, where neither sin nor sinners are. Yet there are some texts, a misunderstanding of which, through early teachings, hide from the minds of many the plain truth. Some of the more common of these we briefly explain: 1. The thief did not ask that Jesus should remember him when Jesus died, or when Jesus should ascend into heaven, but when He should come into His kingdom. 2. Three days after His crucifixion, Jesus had not been in Paradise, where the throne of the Father is. "Touch Me not; for I am not yet ascended to the Father." John 20:17. 3. Jesus will not take His kingdom till He comes again. "When the Son of Man shall come in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then shall He sit on the throne of His glory." Matt. 25:31. See, also, 2 Tim. 4:1; Rev. 11:15. 4. Not until then will the saints enter into His kingdom. 5. Then the Paradise of God will be in the capital city of earth, the New Jerusalem. "The tree of life, which is in the Paradise of God." Rev. 2:7. "And on this side of the river and on that was the tree of life. . . . And there shall be no curse any more; and the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be therein." Rev. 22:1-3. 6. The answer of Jesus to the repentant one at His side, was in harmony with the request: "Verily I say unto thee to-day, Thou shalt be with Me in Paradise." NOTE.—This is all harmonious. The thief in all probability did not die that day. He, with other Jews, had heard the teaching of Jesus that He was coming again. In that supreme hour of darkness, he had faith to believe in the Saviour by his side, and, as he believed in that darkest of all days of the Saviour’s mission, so Jesus promised that day that when the time did come that He should rule in Paradise, the penitent thief should be with Him. The comma is no part of inspired scripture; it belongs after "to-day." II. “The Spirit Shall Return.”
"Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was; and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it." Eccl. 12:7. The above text is the resultant of the sentence given in Gen. 3:19, "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." It is the opposite of Gen. 2:7, "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." Let us ask some questions: Of what was man made?—"Of the dust of the ground." What made him a living creature?—"The breath of life." When he dies, what becomes of the man?—"Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." What goes back to God?—"The spirit," the life. How did man receive that spirit?—As "the breath of life." How does the dust return?—As it came, "dust." How does the spirit go back?—As it came, "the breath of life," and not as a conscious entity. Is it not highly unreasonable and illogical to say that the pronoun "thou," in Luke 23:43, refers to the thief’s soul, and that the "thou" in Gen. 3:19-21, refers to Adam’s body? The spirit returns to God as it came, simply the vital principle of life. III. The Transfiguration.
Who appeared with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration?—"Moses and Elijah." When did Moses die?—Near the close of the forty years’ wandering in the wilderness. Deuteronomy 34. Who but Christ could have prevailed in that conflict? therefore Moses was with Christ on the Mount. How did Elijah come to be on the Mount?—He was translated without seeing death. 2 Kings 2:1, 11. What was represented by the Transfiguration?—"The power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ," at which time there will be the resurrected righteous, represented by Moses; and the translated ones, represented by Elijah. See Matt. 16:28; 17:1; 2 Peter 1:16-19.