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The Great Controversy
neth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.”
Psalm 146:4
.
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Solomon bears the same testimony: “The living know that they shall
die: but the dead know not anything.” “Their love, and their hatred,
and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion
forever in anything that is done under the sun.” “There is no work, nor
device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.”
Ecclesiastes 9:5, 6, 10
.
When, in answer to his prayer, Hezekiah’s life was prolonged
fifteen years, the grateful king rendered to God a tribute of praise for
His great mercy. In this song he tells the reason why he thus rejoices:
“The grave cannot praise Thee, death cannot celebrate Thee: they
that go down into the pit cannot hope for Thy truth. The living, the
living, he shall praise Thee, as I do this day.”
Isaiah 38:18, 19
. Popular
theology represents the righteous dead as in heaven, entered into bliss
and praising God with an immortal tongue; but Hezekiah could see no
such glorious prospect in death. With his words agrees the testimony
of the psalmist: “In death there is no remembrance of Thee: in the
grave who shall give Thee thanks?” “The dead praise not the Lord,
neither any that go down into silence.”
Psalm 6:5
;
115:17
.
Peter on the Day of Pentecost declared that the patriarch David
“is both dead and buried, and his sepulcher is with us unto this day.”
“For David is not ascended into the heavens.”
Acts 2:29, 34
. The
fact that David remains in the grave until the resurrection proves that
the righteous do not go to heaven at death. It is only through the
resurrection, and by virtue of the fact that Christ has risen, that David
can at last sit at the right hand of God.
And said Paul: “If the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised:
and if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your
sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished.”
1 Corinthians 15:16-18
. If for four thousand years the righteous had
gone directly to heaven at death, how could Paul have said that if there
is no resurrection, “they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are
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perished”? No resurrection would be necessary.
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.”—