First Great Deception
459
The Problem of Immortality, page 255. Commenting on the words
of Solomon in Ecclesiastes, that the dead know not anything, the
Reformer says: “Another place proving that the dead have no ... feeling.
There is, saith he, no duty, no science, no knowledge, no wisdom there.
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 awaked, they shall seem to have slept scarce one minute.”—Martin
Luther, Exposition of Solomon’s Booke Called Ecclesiastes, page 152.
Nowhere in the Sacred Scriptures is found the statement that the
[550]
righteous go to their reward or the wicked to their punishment at death.
The patriarchs and prophets have left no such assurance. Christ and
His apostles have given no hint of it. The Bible clearly teaches that
the dead do not go immediately to heaven. They are represented as
sleeping until the resurrection.
1 Thessalonians 4:14
;
Job 14:10-12
.
In the very day when the silver cord is loosed and the golden bowl
broken (
Ecclesiastes 12:6
), man’s thoughts perish. They that go down
to the grave are in silence. They know no more of anything that is
done under the sun.
Job 14:21
. Blessed rest for the weary righteous!
Time, be it long or short, is but a moment to them. They sleep; they
are awakened by the trump of God to a glorious immortality. “For the
trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible.... So
when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal
shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying
that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.”
1 Corinthians 15:52-
54
. As they are called forth from their deep slumber they begin to
think just where they ceased. The last sensation was the pang of death;
the last thought, that they were falling beneath the power of the grave.
When they arise from the tomb, their first glad thought will be echoed
in the triumphal shout: “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where
is thy victory?”
Verse 55
.
[551]