[NOTE:* While not in the Bible, those opposed to the Bible reference of "death" as "sleeping/resting" have chosen to refer to this as "soul sleep." Why not use the Biblical term of "sleeping", I don't know...other than to just make it sound weird. ]*
The Objective
While writing my series on "What the Bible says about the dead" a reader by the handle @barncat brought up some common objections to the idea that the dead know nothing, have any thoughts, memories, emotions, they can't communicate with the living and that you don't go to heaven/hell instantly upon death. I'd like to take this opportunity to respond to each of the pieces of scripture they use to support their objection to the clear biblical teachings of the state of the dead and let's see if these arguments are valid.
It's important to note, the inspired word of God is truth and as such, it cannot be out of harmony with itself. As we read and study this, the only rule I want to present is "the rule of not adding to his word." In other words, if the Bible didn't say that, then I will not invent explanations and inject my own reasoning. I will not rely on tradition or even "follow the crowd" in how others view these points. Following the larger crowd can be dangerous as we learn in, Matthew 7:14.
1. Moses and Elijah were with Jesus at the mt of transfiguration
The argument is, if Moses and Elijah died and are resting, how can they be talking with Jesus? Clearly, Moses and Elijah are talking with Jesus, therefore they can communicate with the living. They are talking, meaning they have thoughts and emotions. And they appear to know each other, meaning they have memories. So, is this evidence against the dead knowing nothing? Let's take a look.
Now, before we go too far, I want to add an interesting detail. Elijah never died. He was taken up in a fiery chariot.
Let's read the following text and let's see if there's anything special about this.
- The Lord himself buried Moses. This is special because it's the only time in the Bible that God does anything like this.
- They emphasize just how special Moses is, in that, there has never been another prophet like him who knew the Lord "face to face."
- And the burial place was secret.
These were hints that something special was about to take place.
This event that was going to take place was the special resurrection of Moses by the archangel. We also see that on the final day, it's the "voice of an archangel" that resurrects the rest of the dead who have been sleeping.
Therefore, it's not a strange thing to see Moses and Elijah, who represents the "Law and the Prophets" present to encourage Jesus Christ. Once you have been resurrected, you now have a new body, incorruptible and with Gods breath (spirit) once again running through your physical body.
What we've learned through studying the death and resurrection of Moses is that Moses was a special case. He died, had a short rest and was then resurrected by the archangel. Therefore this case cannot be used as proof that when you die you go immediately to heaven or hell.
Need more proof?
We know that God loved David because it's recorded that David was a man after Gods own heart, but even David is still resting in the grave waiting for the last day for the shout of the archangel. Even Martha knew this.
This was common knowledge for the Jews, they all knew this.
- He's talking about a time in the future.
- Talking about everyone who has died.
- The dead will hear his voice (The voice of the archangel).
- That future event will determine if you're going into everlasting life or damnation.
Let’s summarize what we’ve learned
- The Lord himself buried Moses.
- Moses was resurrected by the archangel.
- David is still in the grave awaiting the voice of the archangel.
- Martha understood this is how it works.
- John teaches that a future event will take place where all who are dead will rise again at the last day.
You can't use "Moses and Elijah" as evidence and stay in harmony with all the other verses that speak of the dead not having any thoughts, memories, etc. This can only happen when you are resurrected.
Preview of the upcoming objections I plan on covering:
- The thief on the cross.
- The rich man and Lazarus.
- Revelation 6:9-11 "...souls of those slain calling out in a loud voice..."
- The martyrdom of Stephen
If you have any others you'd like me to include please add in the comments below.
@truth-be-told I love that your bringing the message of God here.There is a lot of lost souls that need to be saved and I appreciate what your doing here.Keep up the good work‼️
Thanks! I really think people need to return back to some basic Biblical fundamentals of truth. A lot of pastors are just preaching "fluffy" and "sweet" things and ignoring some basic teachings.
I'm just doing my part :-)
There's some very good revelations of truth in this post! Upvoted and following
An honest question... in the Bible how many people did god kill? And also how many people did satan kill? What makes him evil? Your god is a god of light my friend. So bright he can blind you. Learn to think for yourself.
I don't have an answer to your seemingly honest questions of how many people God or satan killed; however, I might be able to answer the question of what makes satan evil. From a Biblical perspective I believe the general understanding is that Lucifer "turned" evil after his pride got in the way and instead of focusing on God's glory, Lucifer wanted to be like God and have the glory for himself. Pride and selfishness, egotistical...those traits are some things that make Lucifer a.k.a satan evil.
I will state right know as a warning I don’t not believe in any version of the Bible. However I was raised catholic and am still fascinated by it. This is a serious question . And I am curious, but in a sense didn’t the devil sacrifice himself for humanity sort of like Jesus. he wanted to give humans knowledge and he was banished from heaven knowing that he would be. That seems selfless to me. I just don’t see how he is evil from the Bible. And for god to be all powerful and all knowing why would he need to banish Satan from heaven unless he felt threatened? God seems like the egotistical and selfish one needing obedient slaves as humans to follow rules almost like his love is conditional. No disrespect intended.
Well, I guess it depends on where you are getting your informaton from.
If you don't believe or trust any version of the Bible I'm just curious where you got the informaton about satan in the first place and where other than the Bible you've obtained about satan being banished from heaven and what his purpose was in doing what he does; or the fact that he exists at all. Very curious about that. Is this something you heard about being raised Catholic or somewhere else?
I am also curious (on a side note) about the warning you gave me and why you do not believe any version of the Bible and what all of that is about...sounds like an interesting story of how that came about.
I guess I didn’t mean I don’t believe it I just think that is not true if that makes my sense. There is many good things in the Bible. Jesus’s sermon on Temple Mount is probably one of the best contributions to humanity that exists. But do I not think he was free of sin, or childless. Maybe Satan exists but maybe he doesn’t, but that’s for the desert people. I found truth in my native religion of paganism. A connection to earth, ancestry, and reincarnation. It is very similar to Hinduism and I feel that may be its roots, ( just a feeling) but all I know is it make sense to me and I was Blinded by the Christian god. I lived in fear, anxiety guilt, shame for existing. I never felt like I belonged didn’t know who I was. But all that changed when I discovered the religion of my ancestors. That being said I still can’t changed the fact that I was raised catholic. I still find value in the Bible same as the Tao, quaran, and other texts. And sadly The Christians feared our religion So much they destroyed ever trace of it they could, and prevented what was left of it. That’s why I’m warning you they only allow for one truth even though there may be others. The official stance of the church is that the old gods exist but worshiping them will land you in hell.
I'm so sorry you lived in fear, guilt and condemnation. It's an error by preachers, who have portrayed alot in not-so-full light.
If you got questions let's talk.
The offer the devil made to Eve was not an offer to help her. It was to condemn her as a "lawbreaker" therefore deserving of death. You see, Lucifer himself was a lawbreaker and accused God of being unfair with His laws. In his accusation, he convinced a third of the angels to rebel against God. Lucifer did this out of jealousy because he wanted to be like God. The devil is just a coward who doesn't want to die alone.
Now, God doesn't force anyone to love Him. He gives everyone free-will. The devil serves as an example of what life is like when we are free of Gods laws. Because of the devil, we have wars, death, rape, illnesses, and suffering. That is the product of lawlessness. God's laws offer true freedom. While you are in Gods law, you will not murder, lie, steal, have envy and you will love your neighbor as yourself. Without God's laws, you are subject to "anything goes" mentality. How safe would you feel if you left your house to get groceries, but laws don't exist? You probably wouldn't want to even leave your house! It just would not be safe out there without ANY laws in place. Therefore, laws serve to protect you and ensure your happiness.
What God is offering is life eternal with Him. God is a social being who loves our company, which is why He said that He's prepared a mansion for each of us and He wants to dwell with us for all eternity.
Wow...... This is not something to preach over steemit, but I'll try.
First you got it twisted in your understanding of God. God is all-knowing and doesn't react to situations(if you need more explanations on this I would be glad to do that)
God was not keeping the fruit from man is any way to keep him dumb and foolish. But he gave man a will when he created him and wanted him to have the freedom to choose to obey God and not acts like a robot.
In the realm of the Spirit, you excel in knowledge by accessing the presence of God frequently, even the devil knew this, he was the brightest of all Angels before he simply had more access to God's throne than the others.
That's why God made it a point of duty to meet with man,every evening in the cool of the day, to the end that man would excel in knowledge by having more access to his presence.
@balticbadger, I understand. It’s hard to read certain things in the Bible. But to put things into perspective, when the U.S. puts people to death in prison, is it justified? When the U.S. fought against Hitler and kills thousands of his soldiers, was that justified?
Generally speaking, we would all agree there are justified times when people who do evil need to be put down. They have been given all the opportunity to change and do good, but they preferred evil.
In the same way, God is just in any life He takes. Whereas the Devil takes lives without cause. There is no comparison between the two.
Sir, those are not good examples. I was a soldier in war and I can tell you that it’s not so black and white. I was in combat and have seen death and I’m sorry to say it was never justifiable. It’s not a Hollywood movie. Many german citizens were murdered by allied bombs months before the blitz. And the us has a bad track record of killing innocent people as well. Just as in the Bible, when god flooded the earth I would have to believe children were murdered and god himself says children are innocent so how is that justified?
First I want to thank you for your service. War is never pretty. God takes no pleasure in the death of anyone.
Now, my example is not about the granular "gray areas", but instead to the specific and clear areas where we all can agree it is justifiable. In general, as a society, we have all agreed that Hitler deserved the death penalty. Everyone understands that there is not much of a choice but to remove by any means necessary, even death.
With that framework in mind, when God does this, He gives the people plenty of opportunities to change. When Moses was ordered to eliminate certain towns, it was because judgment had been passed. The people God had judged were the most detestable pagans you can imagine. Offering child sacrifices to their gods. They were people, just as cruel as Hitler. God gave them over 400 years to change, but they preferred evil over good.
Therefore, there is no question about Gods justice. These were people who were as lawless as you can get.
The reason you are not looking like one of the descendants of the Anakimss because of that flood.
Man's race was soiled by the intermingling of fallen angels-nephilims with women.
Wiping off almost all of the earth was a salvation plan to help man
God is just. He's just when he condemns unbelievers to hell for an eternity.
good job. Upvote for You
Thanks, I appreciate that. :-)
This post has received a 16.68 % upvote from @booster thanks to: @truth-be-told.
Elijah did not go up to heaven. He died like every other saint before him
Elijah was taken to heaven while alive.
(2 Kings 2:7-12 NIV) Fifty men of the company of the prophets went and stood at a distance, facing the place where Elijah and Elisha had stopped at the Jordan. {8} Elijah took his cloak, rolled it up and struck the water with it. The water divided to the right and to the left, and the two of them crossed over on dry ground. {9} When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, "Tell me, what can I do for you before I am taken from you?" "Let me inherit a double portion of your spirit," Elisha replied. {10} "You have asked a difficult thing," Elijah said, "yet if you see me when I am taken from you, it will be yours--otherwise not." {11} As they were walking along and talking together, suddenly a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them, and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind. {12} Elisha saw this and cried out, "My father! My father! The chariots and horsemen of Israel!" And Elisha saw him no more. Then he took hold of his own clothes and tore them apart.
Have you read:
It was near the time for the Lord to take Elijah by a whirlwind up into heaven. Elijah and Elisha started to leave Gilgal.
2 Kings 2:1 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=2%20Kings%202:1&version=ERV
Elijah and Elisha were walking and talking together. Suddenly, some horses and a chariot came and separated Elijah from Elisha. The horses and the chariot were like fire. Then Elijah was carried up into heaven in a whirlwind.
2 Kings 2:11 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=2%20Kings%202:11&version=ERV
Okay I have read both comments. But it negates the credibility of what Jesus said: "I am the way the truth and the life, no one comes to the father but by me"
If Elijah went to heaven without Jesus, then it means Jesus' testimony about h being the only way to heaven is not true
I don't know that this "negates the credibility" of what Jesus said. Who said that Elijah went to heaven without Jesus? Are you saying that Elijah went to heaven of his own human power? Because that is not what the message is here. The Bible verses that were referenced by @barncat and @truth-be-told were speaking of Elijah being taken to heaven by God. Maybe I'm not understanding what you are saying, but I don't see how those verses negate God or Jesus' credibility...
As at the time of Elijah, there was no Jesus. Only the WORD resident in and with the father.
When Jesus died the power that tore the veil went out and quickened the body of all the Saints that were in the city of David.
But none of them came out of their graves, until Christ resurrected, because Jesus had to be the FIRST BORN AMONG THE DEAD.
Next Jesus descended to the lower parts of the earth to do 3 things.
The great Father Abraham
Isaac
Jacob
Elijah
Elisha
Even Enoch too. If you doubt me read Hebrews 11:13 then go back and see whose name was mentioned in verse 5.
Not sure what your point is in any of these statements. Are you saying that "The Saints" are specific people only? And that after Jesus rose all the "saints" who died before Him rose and are in heaven?
Yes. Or have you not read so
Jesus is God. He is the Word made flesh. He has always existed and there is nothing that is made that was made without Him.
Are you saying that Jesus, or the creator, did not exist until the NT?
I never said such.
You are saying that Jesus did not exist before his human body. Jesus has always existed.
Again! I never said such. Jesus existed as the word, not Jesus. Jesus is his earthly name.
And please respond to my other comments.
Thanks
sorry, it’s been a loooong day for me. But I will respond 😉👍
I felt what you were saying is that Elijah is not in heaven because he did not go to heaven by way of "Jesus." If Jesus is the only way, yet Elijah went to heaven without Jesus being born, then Elijah cannot be in heaven. That's what I understood about what you were trying to say.
If that is in fact what you were trying to say, then I would have to disagree with your statement. Which is why I responded the way I did.
Look at this: 2kings 2:7-12 Elijah supposedly goes up to heaven during the reign of Ahab.
Yet in 2nd Chronicles 21:12 he writes a letter to Jehoram the son of Jehoshaphat. Who was king at that time
I'm interested in what your point is; rather, I'm trying to understand it. What exactly is your point?
I read the verses that you indicated, and I also took the liberty to read the chapter before and after the account of 2 Kings 2 and Elijah and Elisha's stories... Near the very end of 2 Kings 1 it says that "this was the second year of Jehoram, the son of Jehoshaphat, who was reigning JOINTLY with his father in Judah." It also mentions that other things that Ahaziah did are recorded in The Chronicles of the Kings of Israel... is this what you are referring to or is there some confustion as to the harmony of what is recorded in the Bible?
Not sure what your point is. What that's got to do with anything?
Yet again see what glorious statement Jesus makes in John 3:13:
New International Version
No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven--the Son of Man.
Even Enoch did not go to heaven.
Context matters. What was Jesus talking about right before that statement? What point was He trying to make?
Jesus was trying to explain spiritual things to Nicodemus that was hard for him to understand.
He was trying to explain that no one has lived in heaven and then come here to live except the Son of Man. He lived there before and has come back to make spiritual things easy to understand.
No man can penetrate the spiritual world. Flesh is flesh, that is, born of the earth; therefore, it is earthly (1 Cor. 15:47). However, Jesus Christ was different from all other men. His origin was out of heaven, out of the spiritual world and dimension of being.
We are preaching the same thing. NO MAN MEANS NO MAN. even Abraham the Father of faith, when he died, he didn't go to Heaven. He had to wait for Christ, the way to come. Luke 16:19-25
don't you get it, Jesus had to be the first in everything. No man could enter heaven before him. Jesus was the first born from the dead, the first son of God, the first to have the Holyghost live in him, the first in all things.
Jesus talked to Moses and Elijah. What more do you need? When you refuse to accept the clear meaning of scripture you show contempt for the word of God. And when you do that you show contempt for God.
What I need is context. Moses didn’t appear as a ghost. He had a real physical body because he was resurrected. Was Elijah also a ghost?
I noticed a lot of your posts are about the “harmony of scripture”. How do the verses I provided which explain how the dead know nothing stay in harmony with your examples? Don’t you see them as contradicting each other?
A good example to look at is in 1 Samuel 28:7-19 when Saul spoke to Samuel. Samuel was dead but God raised him temporarily (not the witch, only God has the power to raise the dead) to deliver a message to Saul.
Samuel himself asked him why did u raise me up, which implies that he was in the earth below.
Well, to say that "God raised him up temporarily" is an assumption and out of character. This witch, was not a prophet of God, therefore how could they be working together? Is God under the witches commands to bring people up every time a witch wants? Furthermore, it would contradict the rest of scripture that speaks to the state of the dead.
If this person who was dead is speaking, then they must be alive, according to the Biblical definition of what the living and dead can and cannot do.
In other words, this "thing" that was speaking to Saul was not the prophet Samuel, it was a demon, taking the form of Samuel.
2 Corinthians 11:14
"...For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light."
This is why it's important to know that the dead cannot communicate with the living.
How do you know that was not Samuel? Look at what Samuel says in the verses:
"15 And Samuel said to Saul, Why hast thou disquieted me, to bring me up? And Saul answered, I am sore distressed; for the Philistines make war against me, and God is departed from me, and answereth me no more, neither by prophets, nor by dreams: therefore I have called thee, that thou mayest make known unto me what I shall do.
16 Then said Samuel, Wherefore then dost thou ask of me, seeing the LORD is departed from thee, and is become thine enemy?
17 And the LORD hath done to him, as he spake by me: for the LORD hath rent the kingdom out of thine hand, and given it to thy neighbour, even to David:
18 Because thou obeyedst not the voice of the LORD, nor executedst his fierce wrath upon Amalek, therefore hath the LORD done this thing unto thee this day.
19 Moreover the LORD will also deliver Israel with thee into the hand of the Philistines: and to morrow shalt thou and thy sons be with me: the LORD also shall deliver the host of Israel into the hand of the Philistines."
The prophecy of Saul and his sons falling in battle with the Philistines. Even the previous reiterated message that Samuel told Saul in Vs 17
How can you ascribe that to evil?
God even says in Dueteronomy 18:21-22:
"21 And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the LORD hath not spoken?
22 When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him."
Basically if the thing prophecied comes to pass then the prophet is of God.
We know that Saul and his sons died in battle, therefore, what the resurrected Samuel said came to pass. So how can you say that was not the prophet Samuel and that it was evil? God's ways are mysterious. He can use any means of communicating with people for them to listen.
Proverbs 26:5 says: "Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit." I think this is what God was doing to Saul.
The witch was a scam she had no power to resurrect the dead and she knew that, when she saw Samuel she was alarmed because that could only be the power of God. That witch is a perfect representation of the mediums that exist today who trick people into thinking they can speak with the dead and they can't.
I agree that the dead cannot communicate with the living that is why I said he was temporarily resurrected just to deliver the message.
Even Lazarus was temporarily resurrected in a sense, he was not immortal so he would have died afterwards.