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The Great Controversy 1888
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
[547]
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 which are fallen asleep in Christ are
perished”? No resurrection would be necessary.
The martyr Tyndale, defending the doctrine that the dead sleep,
declared to his papist opponent: “Ye, in putting them [departed souls]
in Heaven, hell, and purgatory, destroy the argument wherewith Christ
and Paul prove the resurrection.” “If the souls be in Heaven, tell me
why they be not in as good case as the angels be? And then what cause
is there of the resurrection?”