THE COMING OF CHRIST AT DEATH.
By Uriah Smith
It is a notable fact that every false theory leads to a perversion of many plain scriptures in order to make them correspond. The popular view of the present day, that man has an immortal soul which leaves the body at death and flies away to dwell in the presence of its God in realms of bliss, furnishes many illustrations of this fact. One instance we here notice. Jesus said to his sorrowing disciples, "Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also." What is the hope here held out to the disciples? It is this: that Christ would prepare a place for them and come again and receive them unto himself, that where he was there they might be also. All is here made to turn on the coming of Christ. When he came he would receive them and they would be with him; and not before. Says popular theology, The soul of the christian departs at death to dwell with Christ in realms of glory. To preserve the integrity of the words of Christ, with such a view as this, it must of necessity follow that the coming of Christ takes place at death. This we say is the only legitimate conclusion which will harmonize with the above view. The soul departs to be with Christ at death; but Christ must come before he takes his people to himself according to his promise; therefore Christ has come at death—a false premise, and an absurd conclusion. Surely one would think that a person must be impelled by strong necessity to endeavor to support a view so unscriptural as that the second coming of Christ takes place at death; and here we have it. Admit that the coming of Christ is what the Scriptures teach—a literal coming in the clouds of heaven, and the words of Christ, above quoted, strike a fatal blow at the very root of the view that the soul is conscious and departs at death to dwell with its Redeemer. When it can be proved that the coming of Christ "in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory," "with the holy angels," "with a great sound of a trumpet," "in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God," is some spiritual operation that takes place at death, unseen and unheard, then may the advocates of the conscious state of the dead congratulate themselves that they have one less of those formidable texts to dispose of, which throw themselves like impassable barriers across their pathway.