Man in Death by George W. Rine

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Feb 28, 1911

Man in Death

By George W. Rine

THE paradoxical question, "Are the dead alive?" is nearly as old as the human race. Millions are still asking the same hoary question, just as if God, the Creator of man, had not, thousands of years ago, given us a categorical answer. The well-known journalist, Mr. Fremont Rider, recently gave to the public a book with the title, "Are the Dead Alive?" The book, we are told, is having an unprecedented sale. Nearly thirty years ago the famous Society of Psychical Research was created in London primarily for the purpose of discovering the true answer to this time-old question. It is through the scientific investigation of the phenomena of Spiritism that the society has prosecuted its quest of the coveted answer. The membership of the society has always consisted of scientists and authors of international fame. Branch societies have been organized in Italy, France, and America.

Now if these learned researchers, and the world generally, really believed the testimony of God given through His Word as to the state or condition of the dead, the Society for Psychical Research would never have existed, and the question of the centuries, cited above, would never have been asked. God's answer to the question is so clear, simple, and definite that a child can not mistake its meaning. When the Creator announced to our first parents that if they disobeyed Him — ate of the forbidden fruit — they would surely die, He meant exactly what He said. True it is that Satan, the father of lies, as he is of all other forms of sin, contradicted God by declaring to the mother of the race that even if she should disobey her Creator, she would not die, but be all the wiser and happier for her disobedience. Strange to say that not only our first parents, but nearly all their posterity, have accepted the pronouncement of Satan rather than that of God, as to man's condition in death.

Do you really know, dear reader, whether the dead are or are not actually dead? Do you want to know? If you do, why not accept the witness of God as set forth in His Word respecting this otherwise baffling question? Should not the testimony of the omniscient One be accepted as conclusive, as final? Through His servant Solomon, man's Creator bears the following unmistakable testimony: "For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope: for a living dog is better than a dead lion. For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not anything. . . . Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished." Eccl. 9:4-6. Should not this direct, clear-cut dictum as to the condition of man in death, forever settle the question in the mind of every sincere believer in the God of the Bible? Does man possess a consciousness or personality that survives the death of the body, if, as God asserts, "the dead know not anything"? No one denies that love, hatred, and envy are attributes of mind. God tells us that these states of mind perish with the dissolution of the body. We all believe that God made man, and that He, as He Himself says, "knoweth our frame." Can He, therefore, be mistaken when He asserts that "the dead know not anything"?

The divine declaration recorded in verse 10 of the same chapter is significant in respect to the question we are considering. It runs thus: "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest." Observe, please, that the Author of man here asserts unqualifiedly that the dead have no "knowledge," no "wisdom." This being true, they can have no consciousness, no mind, no life. All who believe in the God of the Christian, believe in His Word; and believing in His Word, they know that "the dead know not anything."

The inspired psalmist entertained no doubt as to man's inability, when dead, to remember God or to offer Him thanks; for he says in addressing God, "For in death there is no remembrance of Thee: in the grave who shall give Thee thanks?" Ps. 6:5. He again declares, "The dead praise not the Lord." Remember that David under the inspiration of the divine Spirit made this declaration respecting all the dead — the righteous as well as the unrighteous dead. It is because they "know not anything," because they are not alive, that the dead neither "remember" nor "thank" nor "praise" the Lord. Who is the more trustworthy, David, the chosen of the Lord, or the modern salaried teacher of theology?

In the 38th chapter of Isaiah we have narrated an incident in the life of Hezekiah which is strikingly pertinent to our inquiry. The facts of the story are these: Hezekiah the King "was sick unto death." Through the prophet Isaiah the Lord sent the King a message to the effect that his illness would end fatally. But for some cause Hezekiah felt so averse to dying at that time that he turned his face to the wall and with weeping entreated the Lord to spare his life. In answer to the King's contrite petition the Lord sent him this message by the hand of Isaiah: "I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold, I will add unto thy days fifteen years." In the joy and gratitude of his heart for having been so wondrously saved from death, Hezekiah, guided by the Spirit of God, passionately exclaimed: "Thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption. . . . For the grave can not praise Thee, death can not celebrate Thee: they that go down into the pit can not hope for Thy truth. The living, the living, he shall praise Thee, as I do this day." (See verses 1-5, 17-19.)

The meaning of Hezekiah's words can not be mistaken. He is praising and magnifying the Lord. He declares that if he had died and gone down into the grave, he could not

"praise" and "celebrate" the Lord as he was now doing. But he was alive, and hence able to offer to God, who had saved him from the power of death, praise and thanksgiving. So he rapturously exclaims, "The LIVING, the LIVING, he shall praise Thee, as I do this day." Only the living, declares good King Hezekiah, can praise and worship God; for he knew that the dead were actually dead, and therefore incapable of thought and love and thanksgiving. He knew, as the Scriptures teach, that if he had died he could not have gone into the presence of God at death, but would have lain unconscious in the "pit," or grave, until that day when "the dead in Christ shall rise first."

Those who hold the doctrine of inherent human immortality, believe, of course, that it is the mind, the conscious personality, which survives the change called death. The powers of thought and feeling, they maintain, can not die. It is a dogma that has its roots, not in the teachings of Holy Writ, but in the occult sacerdotalism of ancient Egypt, in the philosophy of Plato, of Socrates, and in the vapory and often grotesque scholasticism of the Dark Ages. True it is that in Eden the dogma was first enunciated, not, however, by the Author of life, but by the prince of darkness, the father of lies. Hence it belongs to what the inspired apostle characterizes as the "doctrines of devils."

The theory is in flat contradiction to the testimony of the divine Spirit. In His Word God has given us an express declaration to the effect that at death the mind as well as the body, the rational as well as the physical powers, are dissolved, aye, perish. Surely not one of my readers can fail to grasp God's pronouncement when He says: "Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. His [man's] breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish." Ps. 146:3, 4. Not simply man's physical organs, with their functions, perish at death, but also his "thoughts"—his mind. Had Solomon, then, any warrant for his asserting that "the dead know not anything"? Aye, he had, as we now see, the unqualified declaration of omniscient God for his warrant. Can God, the Author of man, be mistaken as to the status of man in death? How often Jesus said that He came to declare the words of God the Father! Hence He said just what we should expect Him to say respecting Lazarus after the latter's death. The Master first said, "Lazarus sleepeth." But the disciples placing a false construction upon the word "sleepeth," Jesus said plainly, "Lazarus is DEAD." The Master did not say that Lazarus was in heaven, or in glory, or had gone to God; but He did say, "Lazarus is dead." Not Lazarus's body, but Lazarus as a personality, all there was of Lazarus, was dead.

But, thanks be to God, tho Lazarus was really dead, he was not irretrievably dead; for Jesus proceeded to restore Lazarus to life, not by recalling him from heaven or from Paradise, but by raising him from the dead—by a resurrection. It was at this time that our Lord declared, "I am the resurrection and the life," and then vindicated His stupendous claim by raising His dead friend to life. Whom shall we believe, Plato or Solomon? Socrates or David? Satan or Christ? It was the Spirit of God and of Christ who affirmed through the psalmist that when a man dies, "in that very day his THOUGHTS perish."