MARTIN CAREY |
What do you believe happens to us when we die? As Adventists we had strong opinions and were very sure of the answer. Our doctrines of death shaped our entire approach to life. The topic raises a more uncomfortable question that we usually avoid: what will happen when we die? In those unguarded moments when I dared to think of my own death, I felt a deep discomfort. In Psalm 90, Moses tells us,
“The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away…So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom” (Ps. 90:10,12).
Life is short, even for the strongest of us, and death is never far away. So what determines how long we live? Is it our health practices, our diet, or our genetics? Do our lives end because Satan brought disaster upon us? Or, does God determine the end of our lives? Who is really in control? If you believe in the great controversy, that God must allow Satan to demonstrate to the watching worlds how wicked he is (Patriarchs and Prophets, p.30), then you will fear Satan’s power over your life. Knowing who is in control of death determines the answer to troubling questions:
- Are you ready to die today?
- If not, what needs to change so you will be ready?
- What will happen to you when you die?
- What about death makes you afraid?
If You Had Been Here!
In John the 11th chapter, we find Mary and Martha hit hard by the untimely death of their brother Lazarus. Martha’s dear brother Lazarus lost his battle with a terrible disease, and they are devastated. While he was very ill but still alive, they sent a messenger to Jesus, pleading for Him to come quickly. But Jesus deliberately delayed His coming by two days (vs. 5). When He arrived, Lazarus had been dead for four days. It was now too late for Jesus to heal Lazarus, and Martha cries out to Jesus,
“Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you” (John 11:21-22).
Now that Lazarus’ body is lying dead in the tomb, Martha doesn’t know what to pray for. She hopes in Jesus, but she doesn’t fully understand who He is and what power He brings to the graveside.
Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day” (11:23-24).
Martha understands her end-time resurrection theology well. She knows that far in the future, at the last day, Lazarus and all the other righteous dead will be raised. But she doesn’t understand what Jesus is about to teach her, and us, about the authority He has over life and death:
“Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?’” (John 11:26).
His question, “Do you believe this?” is meant for all of us. Adventists love to talk about the resurrection, but they do not understand Jesus’ divine authority and power over life and death. Adventist doctrines of death prevent them from acknowledging Jesus’ authority and believing His words. He tells us plainly that if we trust in Him, we will live and never die. Why is that so difficult to believe?
Adventist theology teaches a certain state of the dead we called sleep. As Adventists we would say that the dead are asleep, just resting, but really believing that they’re just plain dead. Our hope was that we’d come back in the right resurrection, you know, the one where everyone comes out dressed in their Sabbath best. We hoped that perhaps God will judge us as having been faithful.
One thing we were certain of: the dead know nothing. Saying that the dead are “asleep” was really a euphemism for the end of our conscious lives. That meant that when our bodies died, there would be nothing left of us alive, either physical or spiritual. We would stop breathing, and “Poof!” Out would go our little candle, and all would be dark.
Adventist theology teaches that this physical body is all we have. We practiced the health message so our bodies could stay as healthy as possible for as long as possible.
Adventist theology teaches that this physical body is all we have. We practiced the health message so our bodies could stay as healthy as possible for as long as possible. Some of us carefully followed Ellen White’s counsels on diet, and some of us, not so much. But we all hoped our healthier bodies would bring us closer to God. What was the purpose of all those health rules? To the interested public, Adventist leaders boast of their longer lifespans within their “Blue Zones.” They also believe that their superior diet will tune their minds to the Holy Spirit, help them overcome sins, and prepare them to meet Jesus when He comes. The common theme of all this is a lifelong religious obligation to avoid of physical death.
Death According to Adventism
Let’s look more closely at the Adventist doctrines about the body, the soul, and death. Our source is from the EGW Estate, My Journey to Life, The State of the Dead (https://m.egwwritings.org). Here we’ll summarize Adventist beliefs about death in four main points:
- Souls are not immortal. “The wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23) Only God is immortal (1Timothy 6:16). “Death is an unconscious state for all people” (Ibid). God gives eternal life to the redeemed only at the resurrection. Without breath there is no living soul, no life. In the Bible, “soul” only refers to the whole person, never to a non-material soul that separates from the body at death. Stated as a formula, Body+breath = Living soul. Souls have no life or thought separate from the living, breathing human body.
- The Dead know nothing (Eccl. 9:5). The dead have no life, no joy, and no conscious state until the resurrection. The dead cannot communicate with God or with anyone.
- Serpent’s Deception: In the garden of Eden, the serpent told Eve,“You shall not surely die.” Ellen White stated that Satan preached the first sermon on soul immortality (https://www.ellenwhite.info/books/ellen-g-white-book-great-controversy-gc-33.htm ). Teaching that souls are conscious at death is Satan’s original lie, and this lead to spiritualism, talking with the dead.
- Pagan Influences: Soul Immortality, as taught by Christians, originated from Greek philosophers such as Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, and the Stoics. Teaching that the dead have any life or consciousness after death is pagan. Immaterial souls are foreign to Scripture.
In answering Adventism’s views on death, we need to define exactly what death is. In Scripture, there are actually three kinds of death:
- Physical Death—“Lazarus has died.” This is clearly referring to the state of Lazarus’ physical body in the tomb (Jn. 11:14).
- Spiritual Death—Humans in their lost state can be physically alive while they are spiritually dead. “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1). Paul explains the state of the spiritually dead person in detail in Romans 8: “The mind set on the flesh is hostile to God” (Rom. 8:7). We all inherited spiritual death from Adam’s sin: “Many died through one man’s trespass” (Rom. 5:15).
- The Second Death—This is the culmination and finality of spiritual death, unless the person comes to faith in Jesus. “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 3:23) clearly means the ultimate death sentence by God. The spiritually dead will be judged and thrown into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:13,14).
Answering Adventism
Knowing that death in Scripture speaks of more than just death of the body, let’s now compare the Adventist doctrines with Scripture.
“Souls are not immortal.” Truly,“The wages of sinis death” and this speaks of spiritual, physical, and the ultimate death sentence passed on all who sin. We need saving from all three kinds of death, and that is what we find in the gospel of Jesus. The choice He gives us is between “perishing” and “eternal life” (John 3:16). Eternal life is clearly immortality, unending life, as Scripture tells us.
Yes, we know that “God alone is immortal” (1Tim. 6:16). Immortality is God’s original, eternal, necessary attribute that He possesses in Himself. This does not mean that lesser beings can never have immortality, for God gives immortality to whom He wills. Eternal life, by definition, is immortality. God gives and sustains the immortality of angels, and his redeemed. Eternal life opens the way to humans having a life that never dies.
Believers have eternal life now. Jesus said,
“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life” (Jn. 5:24).
Those who believe in Jesus will immediately possess, at that moment, eternal life. Eternal life is a life that cannot be taken away from us, nor can it ever die. Jesus tells us,
“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand” (John 10:27,28).
This helps us understand what Jesus told Martha at Lazarus’ tomb, “Everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die” (John 11:26). He gives immortality to those who believe in Him, when they believe. Yes,He affirmed the resurrection of the body, and he also affirmed a kind of life that never dies. Only a spiritual kind of life can live independent of the body.
The Old Testament Speaks
The favorite Adventist proof-text is Ecclesiastes 9:5,
“For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten.”
Adventists have used “the dead know nothing” as a big rubber stamp that they stamp over other scriptural passages, regardless of what it says about life after death. This is not how to rightly divide the word of God.
As with any Scripture, we need to understand the context, or we will go astray and add our own interpretations. In Ecclesiastes, the “Preacher” is saying, “Life under the sun” is vanity. Life under the sun is the life on this earth, in our bodies that die, surrounded by sin and death. This life is “vanity,” a life of futility, “striving after the wind.” All we strive for to make ourselves comfortable and successful will all go away at death. Death ends those rewards. There are no more rewards for us “under the sun,” for we are dead and gone from this realm. The dead know nothing about the life we live under the sun. Ecclesiastes is wisdom about life under the sun, not a book to instruct us about the afterlife.
The Old Testament has indications that there is life of the soul after death, including a resurrection.
The Old Testament has indications that there is life of the soul after death, including a resurrection. We must be clear that we will never understand life and death until we understand what the New Testament teaches. The OT has “shadowy” hints about life after death that are only made clear when Jesus makes things much clearer. As Paul told Timothy, “life and immortality” are revealed in the gospel (2 Timothy 1:10).
First, let’s look at some of the OT indicators of the soul’s life after death. Does the “breath of life” only refer to our breathing and physical life? The Hebrew word for breath, ruach, can mean our physical breath. However, ruach can refer to the soul. In Ecclesiastes 12:7, we see that at death, there is a separation of life-essence from the body:
“The dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.”
If ruach is only physical breath, what can “return to God?” This leaves open questions about our life essence that can only be answered by other scriptures. This ruach life-essence is not clearly defined in the OT, so we need to understand its parallel in the New Testament, the Greek word “pneuma,” or “spirit.” We will look at that shortly.
The Place of the Dead
In the Old Testament, Sheol is described as the abode of the spirits of the dead. The spirits of the dead are called the raphaim, or “shades” (for example, see Job 26:5 and Isaiah 26:19). In Isaiah 14, the raphaim are there in Sheol, waiting for the arrival of the proud kind of Babylon, so they can mock his weakness. A number of texts tell of conscious spirits of the dead in Sheol, trapped in gloomy darkness where there is no worship, in a gated city that allows no escape. They don’t rise up to praise God or communicate with anyone, for they are locked in Sheol (Ps. 88:10).
In Psalm 139:8, David writes of Sheol being a place where the dead go:
“If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!”
Even when David is in the place of the dead, God is there with Him. He is confident that God will never abandon him, even in death. This indicates that David’s life continues after death, in the intermediate state, where God keeps His presence and His covenant promises to David. We also see God’s faithful presence in Sheol, in Psalm 16:10.
“For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption.”
In 1Samuel 28 we find the story of Saul disguising himself, taking two servants, and visiting Endor. His purpose is to consult a medium there and speak with the spirit of Samuel. As Adventists, we “knew” that the spirit that spoke with Saul was actually Satan, not Samuel. Ellen White stated that because Saul was seeking a medium in violation of God’s law, he was opening himself to the deceptions of Satan. Indeed, what Saul did was clearly condemned by God. Was that spirit in Endor actually Satan? What does Scripture tell us?
This is a real story about God bringing up the spirit of Samuel to prophecy Saul’s doom, as he deserved, and proclaim David’s ascendancy to the throne. It all came to pass.
Firstly, the spirit that speaks is called “Samuel,” and he came up from the earth. Samuel asks Saul why he disturbed him. Saul complains of his terrible predicament with the Philistines attacking Israel, and that God has stopped speaking to Saul. Samuel’s spirit tells Samuel that he will be replaced by his neighbor, David, and that Israel will be defeated by the Philistines. He also gives this ominous prophecy, “Tomorrow you and your sons shall be with me” (1Sam. 28:19). Note that everything that the spirit Samuel said to Saul is consistent with what the living Samuel told Saul when he was alive. Also, everything he said to Saul came to pass. There is no indication that the spirit of Samuel in this passage is evil. This is a real story about God bringing up the spirit of Samuel to prophecy Saul’s doom, as he deserved, and proclaim David’s ascendancy to the throne. It all came to pass.
The New Testament Speaks
Paul speaks of death as a time when we are “away from the body,” a state different from being “in the body.” We need to pay careful attention to the words Paul has chosen here:
“We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him” (2 Cor. 5:6-9).
There are two states of existence being contrasted here:
- At home in the body, away from the Lord.
- Away from the body, at home with the Lord.
Notice that there are two ways to be at home: being at home in the body and walking by faith. Or, at death we are away from the body and at home with the Lord. That is why we can be of good courage and still aim to please Him. Regardless of death or life, we have both courage and life. That is the plainest meaning of this passage, unless you are bringing in human physicalism as your philosophical pre-commitment.
In Philippians 1:23-24, Paul affirms what he told the Corinthians. He knows his death is near, and is confident because he knows where he will be when he dies:
“My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account” (Phil. 1:23-24).
Death is his personally departing to be with Christ, which is much better, even than his life here in the body. Paul is not saying he hates the body or his life; he is strongly preferring being with Christ over this life here.
The same word, pneuma, is used for the Holy Spirit, who is obviously more than just physical breath. Pneuma also describes the angels, both good and evil. It also refers to the human life-essence. Jesus committed His “pneuma” to His Father at the cross. It makes little sense for Him to merely commit his breath to His Father.
Other New Testament Scriptures clearly indicate that pneuma describes a non-material, spiritual life-essence that departs at death.
Jesus, Remember Me!
As Adventists, we moved commas to make our point about the death of the thief on the cross. We moved the comma after “today.” Let’s look closer. The thief rebukes the other criminal, confesses his own guilt as deserving death, then turns to Jesus next to him:
Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:42-43).
Let’s remove all the commas and simply look at the plainest meaning of the Jesus’ words here. Remember, the thief doesn’t want to be forgotten, and shows his faith in Jesus when he asks Jesus to remember him. Jesus replies in kind, that He won’t forget him, and offers him something far greater than what he asked for. “You will be with me in Paradise.”
What is happening at the cross, that very day, that addresses our questions about life eternal? Jesus became sin for us on that cross (2 Cor. 5:21). He is the conquering King who defeats death, the devil, and opens up access to God for all who believe in Him. This was not a far-off future event, but on that very day of His death. Jesus meant “today.”
“Today” is a great NT theme. Today is the day we repent, receive Him, and believe. Today is the day we receive eternal life (Jn. 5:24) and enter His rest (Heb. 4:7). “Today” speaks of the urgency and immediacy as a central message of NT.
Why would Jesus say to the thief, “I say to you today?” The phrase is meaningless and Jesus never used it anywhere else.
Why would Jesus say to the thief, “I say to you today?” The phrase is meaningless and Jesus never used it anywhere else. When He wanted to add emphasis to His words, He would say, “Truly I say to you” as He said in many places, including on the cross.
And lastly, for that thief, Jesus opened access to God and eternal life on that exact day, without delay. There is no need for waiting until a distant resurrection, after some investigative judgment. Believe in Him today, cross over to eternal life and immortality today, and never die.
About Those Greeks
It is true that Plato and other Greek philosophers believed that the body is to be discarded as something low, and is the prison house of the soul. Their philosophy strongly influenced some in the early Christian church with Gnosticism. This philosophy taught that salvation is escape from corrupt material world into the pure spiritual realm. The Gnostics denied the incarnation, that Jesus actually had a physical body, and that He ascended to Heaven as a physical human being. Denying that He came in the flesh is strongly condemned as the teaching of Antichrist in 1John 4:3.
What pagan philosophers taught has little relevance to what we should believe about life and death.
The Greeks did not believe in the resurrection and had a low view of the physical realm and the human body, as contrasted with the spiritual realm of the gods. However, notice that many Jews of Jesus’ time on earth also did not believe in resurrection or spirits, such as the Sadducees. Debates about body and spirit were very common and often heated then as now. What pagan philosophers taught has little relevance to what we should believe about life and death. We have God’s word that teaches us, if we have “ears to hear.”
Both Body and Spirit
The Bible teaches us to love the body and the spirit/soul. Jesus makes this clear when He tells the lawyer in Matthew 22:37
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”
We worship God with our entire beings, with our bodies and souls. Our bodies are functional unities while we are alive that worship. We can be spiritually alive and worship Him, or spiritually dead and rebel. Physical bodies are part of God’s “very good” creation, as told in (Genesis 1:31).
A helpful term for this body-soul unity is “Holistic Dualism,” which affirms that our bodies also have spirits, or souls, that can depart body at death and are still fully conscious (Rev. 6:9-11). There, the souls under the altar are very conscious, and are crying out for vengeance. God speaks to them and gives them comfort, and white robes to wear. They are awaiting resurrection, when they will receive bodies, as God originally intended for us all, at the creation.
So what happens at the resurrection? Bodies and spirits are rejoined together, as we see in 1 Thess 4:14, “God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.” They are with Him now, and He will bring them to be joined with their bodies at Jesus’ coming and our resurrection. Bodies and soulsmust jointogether again at resurrection as God’s created ideal (I Thess. 4:14-16).
Our Fear of Death
Scripture tells us what is behind the oh-so-human fear of death:
“Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery” (Heb. 2:14-15).
Until we truly know Jesus, the Resurrection and Life, and the fullness of eternal life He offers, we are all ruled and enslaved by the fear of death. What Jesus brings to death is far more than just bringing dead bodies back to breathing and walking life. Until we trust in His gift of eternal life, our fears will rule us. Death avoidance is a symptom of that lifelong enslavement to fear of death.
Adventist health culture is obsessed with the physical as a symptom of that slavery. What belief is underneath their physicalism, their obsession with health? It is their doctrine of soul annihilation at death. What you believe happens to you at death will shape how you live. Adventists believe there is nothing left of you at death. We can thank God that we no longer need to fear death, or be obsessed with health-conscious death-avoidance.
Life and immortality have been brought to light in the gospel of Jesus. If we died with Christ, we are also alive with Him:
“We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him…So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”
He came to reverse that curse, spoken by God so long ago in the Garden, “You will surely die.” Our first parents didn’t believe God’s words; they believed a lie. Their disbelief brought them death, the penalty of the second death.When we believe in Jesus, we are trusting in His words that He died and rose for our sins. We don’t defeat death with our diet or abstinence from bad foods. We defeat death by trusting in Jesus blood for our sins. Believing His words, we will surely live and possess eternal life that never ends, even on the exact day that we believe in Him. The curse is ended, and we live forever. We need to be like Martha, with her humble, listening heart, ready to hear and see the good news:
“Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?’”
That is the question that Jesus asks of us today. Let’s not fail to believe the His words, that when can believe in Him, we are alive and present with Him, without interruption, without end. †
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