WE WILL BLESS THE LORD FROM THIS TIME FORTH AND FOREVERMORE.
By G. W. A.
Not long since we enjoyed the privilege of being present at a very animated discussion of the questions whether \"all men are unconscious between death and the resurrection,\" and also \"whether the wicked will cease to live after the second death.\" This was the substance of the questions, if not the exact form. While the brother on the affirmative was piling up his testimony in favor of the unconscious state, he quoted Ps. cxv, 17, \"The dead praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence.\" This passage seemed rather obnoxious to the position of the advocate of the popular part of the question, who believed that a dead man was a thousand times more conscious than a living one; and to prove that the old patriarch David, at least, would never be unconscious, he triumphantly read verse 18 of the same Psalm, \"But we will bless the Lord from this time forth and forevermore.\" This he thought all-sufficient to level at once the argument which our brother had sustained in part from Ps. cxv, 17. And the words of Peter, [Acts ii, 34.] \"For David is not ascended into the heavens,\" were also readily met with the assertion that David's body hadn't yet ascended, but his soul was in paradise, praising God. As this is a question of vital importance, it may not be amiss to re-state the arguments used by the brother on the side of the Scriptures, with such additional ones as have come to our own mind. The position usually taken by those who believe in a conscious intermediate state is, that when people die their souls immediately launch off into the \"unseen world,\" which has two apartments: Abraham's bosom, or paradise, and the place where the wicked endure awful horrors of conscience; which might otherwise be properly enough called a mild heaven and a mild hell. Now this would all be very satisfactory indeed, if it had any Scripture to go with it; but as it has none we are justified in classing it with a thousand other \"inventions\" which are good for nothing but to be \"cast to the moles and bats.\" The original words used to express this supposed conscious state are, sheol, and hades—the former Hebrew, and the latter Greek. Sheol occurs in the Old Testament 65 times, and is rendered into English by hell and grave, each 31 times, and 3 times pit. Hades is found 11 times in the New, and is once rendered grave, and 10 times hell. Hades is the Greek representation of sheol. This may be seen by looking at a passage of Scripture quoted from the Old Testament into the New. Ps. xvi, 8. \"For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell;\" (sheol;) quoted by Peter in Acts ii, 27. \"Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell,\" (hades.) This shows that they are interchangeable words. We now want to inquire, Is there any \"praising God\" in sheol in the state of death? On the authority of \"holy men of old,\" we emphatically say, No! Hear the testimony of good old Hezekiah, who by a special providence of God had just been delivered from this intermediate state: \"Thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption; for thou hast cast all my sins behind my back. For the grave (sheol) cannot praise thee, death cannot celebrate thee; they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.\" Isa. xxxviii, 17, 18. Here is a most unqualified statement that no one can praise God in sheol. \"Sheol cannot praise thee,\" are the inspired words of the convalescent King. He expected if he died that his soul would go into a pit of corruption, which is a fit emblem of the grave. So we here see according to this witness, at least, that David cannot \"praise God forevermore,\" as the phrase is understood now. But he did praise God \"while he had a being,\" till the day he died; and as his \"flesh rests in hope,\" he will resume that praise at the resurrection, and continue it world without end; thus he properly enough says, \"we will praise the Lord from this time forth and forevermore.\" David never expected to praise God in the \"antechamber\" of sheol, as the Editor of a certain Advent paper \"according to the wisdom given in him,\" lately said. On one occasion when in sickness (if we may credit the heading of the Psalm) he said, \"O Lord, deliver my soul; O save me for thy mercies' sake. For in death there is no remembrance of thee, in the grave (sheol) who shall give thee thanks?\" Ps. vi, 5. From these words we should judge that David did not expect to exercise himself much in the way of praise in that celebrated \"antechamber\" we are told of. Mark his words: \"In death there is no remembrance of thee; in sheol who shall give thee thanks?\" Whatever condition he might be in after death, he most fervently prays to be delivered from it. He knew death as a state of silence, as he says in another place. \"Unless the Lord had been my help, my soul had almost dwelt in silence.\" Ps. xciv, 17. Now if David here was backslidden and expected his soul was going to the popular hell, it wouldn't be very silent; and if it went to the antechamber of pious souls it surely wouldn't. Another quotation which marks the use of sheol, and we are done. \"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, (sheol) whither thou goest.\" Eccl. ix, 10. Here again is the most irrefragable evidence that the intermediate state is one of unconsciousness, and that when a man dies he is \"dead, dead, dead.\" The righteous man of Uz also did not see \"eye to eye\" with most modern believers on the state of the dead. He calls it \"the land of darkness and the shadow of death; a land of darkness as darkness itself; and of the shadow of death, without any order, and where the light is as darkness.\" Job x, 21, 22. With such high authority as this on our side, and no Scripture writers contradicting it, we are content to believe that when men die, \"they go down to the bars of the pit, where our rest together is in the dust;\" that all \"their thoughts have perished,\" and that the intermediate state is one of blank unconsciousness and undisturbed repose. G. W. A.