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Man’s State in Death, June 18
For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any
thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of
them is forgotten. Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy,
is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in
any thing that is done under the sun.
Ecclesiastes 9:5, 6
.
The theory of the immortality of the soul was one of those false
doctrines that Rome, borrowing from paganism, incorporated into the
religion of Christendom. Martin Luther classed it with the “monstrous
fables that form part of the Roman dunghill of decretals.” Commenting
on the words of Solomon in Ecclesiastes, that the dead know not any-
thing, the Reformer says: “ ... Solomon judgeth that the dead are asleep,
and feel nothing at all. For the dead lie there, accounting neither days
nor years, but when they are awakened, they shall seem to have slept
scarce one minute.”
The martyr Tyndale, referring to the state of the dead, declared: “I
confess openly, that I am not persuaded that they be already in the full
glory that Christ is in, or the elect angels of God are in. Neither is it any
article of my faith; for if it were so, I see not but then the preaching of
the resurrection of the flesh were a thing in vain.”
According to the popular belief, the redeemed in heaven are ac-
quainted with all that takes place on the earth, and especially with the
lives of the friends whom they have left behind. But how could it be a
source of happiness to the dead to know the troubles of the living, ...
to see them enduring all the sorrows, disappointments, and anguish of
life? ... And how utterly revolting is the belief that as soon as the breath
leaves the body, the soul of the impenitent is consigned to the flames of
hell! To what depths of anguish must those be plunged who see their
friends passing to the grave unprepared, to enter upon an eternity of
woe and sin!
Christ represents death as a sleep to His believing children. Their
life is hid with Christ in God, and until the last trump shall sound those
who die will sleep in Him.
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