What is Death?

ACCORDING to the standard dictionaries, to die is "to pass from an animate to a lifeless state; to cease to live;" etc. But there is a widely prevailing theology which defines death, in the case of men, to be the separation of a conscious, immortal soul from the body, the body only dying; while the soul, in full consciousness, is destined to an eternity of bliss or woe. To sustain this theory, it is necessary to prove first, that man has an entity capable of conscious existence separate from the body, and in the second place, that it is immortal, not being subject to death or decay; neither, of which is revealed in the Bible.

To sustain an unscriptural theory, a mystical mode of interpretation becomes a necessity. Words are made to mean anything but what they literally affirm. Now if the words of Scripture are not to be understood according to their most obvious meaning, each one must have an equal right to his particular mode of interpretation; and this is the way in which the discordant tenets which now afflict a divided church are sustained.

It is evident that God intended that his word should be a revelation to man; but if the plain and positive assertions of the Bible are not to be taken to mean what they say, it is no revelation at all. If its direct statements are to be spiritualized, that is mystified, then unless somebody is inspired to tell us what it means, it may mean one thing, or its opposite, according to the fancy of different individuals; and thus it has no reliable meaning at all. Mystifying the Bible to make it teach the fables of men, has tended to bring it into disrepute.

As in all other books, so in the Bible, symbols and figurative language are used. These are not to be understood literally, but are to be interpreted in harmony with their literal meaning. "If a parable or a symbol be taken literally, it is then no parable or, symbol; but if the interpretation is not taken literally, it is then no interpretation." Any, one who will carefully examine this quoted proposition will see its truth. Interpretations need no interpretation, but must be taken in their plain and obvious sense. And we may say the same of the direct assertions, where no reason exists that the language is figurative.

When God said to the living soul he had created; "In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die," what reason is there for making death anything but "cessation of life?" The threatening was certainly addressed to the intelligent soul; then what reason exists for supposing that soul will escape alive? And when God said to him, after he had sinned, "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return," why should it not be believed that the man formed of dust which "became a living soul," was destined to return to the state in which he was before he was formed and had the gift of life? And since man was excluded from the tree of life (Gen. 3:22-24) lest he should partake of it, "and eat and live for ever," if he does not through Christ regain a "right to the tree of life," what ground is there for believing that the real man is destined to live as long as God exists?

Again, when God says, "The soul that sinneth, it shall die," why should death mean eternal life in misery? Is it necessary to make death a miserable life in the declaration, "The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life"? Nothing creates the necessity but the assumption that man is immortal by nature, and therefore cannot die, a doctrine not revealed in the Bible.