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From Here to Forever
The First Resurrection
They who have been “accounted worthy” of the resurrection
of life are “blessed and holy.” “On such the second death hath no
power.”
Luke 20:35
;
Revelation 20:6
. But those who have not
secured pardon through repentance and faith must receive “the wages
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of sin,” punishment “according to their works,” ending in the “second
death.”
Since it is impossible for God to save the sinner in his sins, He
deprives him of the existence which his transgressions have forfeited
and of which he has proved himself unworthy. “Yet a little while,
and the wicked shall not be: yea, thou shalt diligently consider his
place, and it shall not be.” “They shall be as though they had not
been.”
Psalm 37:10
;
Obadiah 16
. They sink into hopeless, eternal
oblivion.
Thus will be made an end of sin. “Thou hast destroyed the
wicked, thou hast put out their name forever and ever. O thou enemy,
destructions are come to a perpetual end.”
Psalm 9:5, 6
. John, in
the Revelation, hears a universal anthem of praise undisturbed by
one note of discord. No lost souls blaspheme God as they writhe in
never-ending torment. No wretched beings in hell will mingle their
shrieks with the songs of the saved.
Upon the error of natural immortality rests the doctrine of con-
sciousness in death. Like eternal torment, it is opposed to Scripture,
to reason, and to our feelings of humanity.
According to popular belief, the redeemed in heaven are ac-
quainted with all that takes place on earth. But how could it be
happiness to the dead to know the troubles of the living, to see them
enduring the sorrows, disappointments, and anguish of life? And
how revolting the belief that as soon as the breath leaves the body
the soul of the impenitent is consigned to the flames of hell!
What say the Scriptures? Man is not conscious in death: “His
breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his
thoughts perish.” “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.” “The grave cannot praise thee,
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death cannot celebrate thee: they that go down into the pit cannot