Is Sin Eternal?

OF the condition of the dead, and of the nature of sheol, we have plain and forcible testimony in the words of the psalmist (Ps. 6:5), "In death there is no remembrance of thee; in the grave [sheol] who shall give thee thanks?"

Hezekiah was brought near to death, and when, in answer to prayer, he was recovered he said, "I said in the cutting off of my days, I shall go to the gates of the grave [sheol]; I am deprived of the residue of my years. . . . Behold, for peace I had great bitterness; but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption; for thou hast cast all my sins behind my back. For the grave [sheol] 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; the father to the children shall make known thy truth." Isa. 38:10-18.

David says of those in sheol, "The dead praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence" (into sheol). Ps. 115:17. The reason of this is obvious when we read his testimony in another psalm, "Praise ye the LORD. Praise the LORD, O my soul. While I live will I praise the LORD: I will sing praises unto my God while I have any being. Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish." Ps. 146:1-4.

Sheol is not only represented as a place where there is no praise to God, no work, no knowledge, no device, nor wisdom, but it is also a place of darkness, corruption, and worms. "Wilt thou show wonders to the dead? shall the dead arise and praise thee? Selah. Shall thy loving-kindness be declared in the grave? [sheol. A good evidence that the preaching of 1 Pet. 3:18, 19 was not done in sheol] or thy faithfulness in destruction? shall thy wonders be known in the dark? and thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?" Ps. 88:10-12.

In the words of Job we read, "If I wait, the grave [sheol] is mine house: I have made my bed in the darkness. I have said to corruption, Thou art my father: to the worm, Thou art my mother, and my sister. And where is now my hope? as for my hope, who shall see it? They shall go down to the bars of the pit [sheol], when our rest together is in the dust.” Job 17:13-16.

We will now give chapter and verse of each instance where the word sheol occurs in the Scriptures. All who have a desire so to do can now look for themselves and see whether it is a Paradise of conscious happiness and bliss, or even as the Canon called it, "A half-way house to heaven."

The Hebrew word sheol occurs sixty-five times. It is rendered grave thirty-one times. Gen. 37:35; 42:38; 44:29, 31; 1 Sam. 2:6; 1 Kings 2:6, 9; Job 7:9; 14:13; 17:13; 21:13; 24:19; Ps. 6:5; 30:3; 31:17; 49:14, 15; 88:3; 89:48; 141:7; Prov. 1:12; 30:16; Eccl. 9:10; Sol.'s Song 8:6; Isa. 14:11; 38:10, 18; Eze. 31:15; Hosea 13:14. It is rendered pit three times. Num. 16:30, 33; Job 17:16. It is also rendered hell in thirty-one instances. Deut. 32:22; 2 Sam. 22:6; Job 11:8; 26:6; Ps. 9:17; 16:10; 18:5; 55:15; 86:13; 116:3; 139:8; Prov. 5:5; 7:27; 9:18; 15:11, 24; 23:14; 27:20; Isa. 5:14; 14:9, 15; 28:15, 18; 57:9; Eze. 31:16, 17; 32:21, 27; Amos 9:2; Jonah 2:2; Hab. 2:5. Hades, the New Testament Greek term for the sheol of the Old Testament occurs eleven times, and in ten cases of its use it is rendered hell. Matt. 11:23; 16:18; Luke 10:15; 16:23; Acts 2:27, 31; Rev. 1:18; 6:8; 20:13, 14. Once the word is rendered grave. 1 Cor. 15:55.

Some have urged St. Paul's desire to "depart and be with Christ" (Phil. 1:23) as proof of consciousness in death, and that the righteous, at death, go immediately to be with Christ.

While considering this text we must give due weight to what we have learned from the Scriptures concerning the state of the dead. If it is a state of sleep, and unconsciousness, from death to the resurrection, how could the dead be said to be with Christ before his second coming and the resurrection?

There are a few scriptures bearing directly upon the question of the saints going to be with Christ which we must now notice. "Little children, yet a little while. I am with you. Ye shall seek me: and as I said unto the Jews, Whither I go ye cannot come [St. John 7:33, 34]; so now say I to you. . . .Simon Peter said unto him, Lord, whither goest thou? Jesus answered him, Whither I go, thou canst not follow me now; but thou shalt follow me afterwards. Peter said unto him, Lord, why cannot I follow thee now? I will lay down my life for thy sake. Jesus answered him, Wilt thou lay down thy life for my sake? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, The cock shall not crow, till thou hast denied me thrice. Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am there ye may be also." St. John 13:33, to 14:3. We see in the above, it is plainly stated that Christ's people get to be with him at his second coming.

St. Paul, when administering consolation to the afflicted mourners of the church at Thessalonica, said: "But I would not have you ignorant, brethren concerning them which are asleep; that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. [That is, he will bring them up from the sleep of death by the power of Christ the resurrected one.] For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words." 1 These.. 4 : 13-18. In this instance we learn that the Lord's people, both the living and the dead, get to be with him at the time of Christ's second coming and the resurrection.

If we call the "departing" of St. Paul's "desire," death, he could not expect to be with Christ until the resurrection. The state of death being a period of unconscious sleep is naught to the dead. They die, and if they are dead for one year or for four thousand years it is but an instant in either case to an unconscious sleeper.

We will introduce here a few thoughts from John Locke, England's great and celebrated philosopher of the seventeenth century. His words though written two hundred years ago are just in point now. He says: "We know certainly by experience that we sometimes think and thence draw an infallible consequence, that there is something in us which has a power to think. But whether that substance perpetually thinks or no, we can be no further assured, than experience informs us. For to say that actual thinking is essential to the soul, and is inseparable from it, is to beg what is in question, and not to prove it by reason, which is necessary to be done, if it is not a self-evident proposition. The idea of duration arises from a succession of ideas, and by that succession, duration is measured in our minds."— Essay, Book II, Chap. I, Sec. 10.

Again he says: "When that succession of ideas ceases, our perception of duration ceases with it, which every one clearly experiments in himself, whilst he sleeps soundly, whether an hour or a day, or a month, or a year; of which duration of things, whilst he sleeps, or thinks not, he has no perception at all, but it is quite lost to him, and the moment wherein he leaves off to think, until the moment he begins to think again, seems to him to have no distance."—Locke's Essay, Book II Chap. IV, Sec. 4.

Archdeacon Blackburn, of the last century said "I shall be of opinion, that not to think and not to be conscious that we think, is one and the same thing:"—History of the Controversy. Chap. XXIX. In the same chapter he cites a case illustrating the point. It was published, he says, in the London Gazetteer of Saturday, Sept. 28, 1771. It reads thus: "Yesterday fortnight the wife of a tradesman in May's buildings, St. Martin's lane, going to bed as usual, in good health, fell asleep, in which she continued till Tuesday morning, although several methods were taken to awake her, but without effect, till she awoke of herself, got up, and went about her household business, and it was with difficulty she could be persuaded it was any other day but Saturday."

This was a case of profound sleep, or total unconsciousness for four days. The lady had no knowledge of the lapse of time. Had she slept until the resurrection, though it might have been over one hundred years, she doubtless would have considered still that it was only the day after she retired to bed in May's building.

On the theme of unconsciousness in death, and the certainty of the resurrection, the Archdeacon bears testimony as follows: "If the promises of God may be depended upon, and he is able to perform them, men may, and certainly will be raised from the dead at the appointed time, whether the soul has or has not enjoyed its consciousness from the period of death to that of the resurrection. But on the other hand, if it may be demonstrated by philosophical principles, that there is one part of man, which never dies, and which may be delighted or afflicted, rewarded or punished, by the means of its own peculiar feelings or sensations, in a state of separation from the other part, it is hardly credible that God should restore the other part to life, to accomplish a purpose which may be brought about without it." Chap. XIV.

It seems from the reading of the Scriptures that its writers knew of no rewards prior to Christ's coming and the resurrection. Our Saviour himself said, "But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind: And thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee: for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just." St. Luke 14:13, 14. He also plainly intimated that if the dead are not raised they will be lost. "And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day." St. John 6:39. If his people are not raised at the last day he will lose them. How can this be, if the real man exists in consciousness without a resurrection ?

The resurrection of God's people being the time of reward, how natural that the New Testament writers should look to that time, and to the spiritual, resurrected body, in which they shall be with the Lord, as their greatest object of desire.

The departing and being with Christ is more fully set forth by St. Paul in his letter to the Corinthians. "For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man [our hope in Christ—the new man. Eph. 3:16, 17; Col. 3:9, 10] is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen [carnal things of this world], are temporal, but the things which are not seen [the immortal body, and the future immortal kingdom of God] are eternal. For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle [our temporal residence on earth, in this mortal state] were dissolved [if the day of dissolution should come, 2 Pet. 3:10-12], we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. [He here refers to the spiritual immortal bodies of the saints which they shall possess in the resurrection state.] For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from Heaven [while this mortal state continues we suffer and groan with creation. We desire our house from Heaven; or, as we have now the image of the earthly, we desire the image of the heavenly. 1 Cor. 15:49]; if so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked. For we that are in this tabernacle do groan being burdened; not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life." 2 Cor. 4:16-18; 5:1-4.

On this last expression Dr. Justin Edwards, D. D., says: "It is not the unclothing of our bodies by death that we desire, but the clothing of it with the glorified body. If it might be the will of God, we should be glad to have mortality swallowed up of life, without death, as will be the case of those who are alive at Christ's coming."

St. Paul continues: "Now he that hath wrought us for the self same thing is God ["For God made man to be immortal, and made him to be an image of his own eternity. Nevertheless through envy of the devil came death into the world; and they that do hold of his side do find it." Wisdom of Solomon 2:23, 24.] who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit. [That is, those who believe in Christ have the Spirit now dwelling in them, by which they shall be made immortal in the resurrection, having the vile body fashioned like unto Christ's glorious body. Rom. 8:11; Phil. 3:20, 21.] Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord; (for we walk by faith and not by sight) [that is, while this mortal probationary period continues we are absent from the resurrection body in which we shall be with the Lord, and to which our faith looks forward]; we are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord. [We would rather that the immortal state should come, and the mortal period close.] Wherefore we labor, that whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him. [Whether living here in this mortal state, or dead; for these are the two classes found in that day—the living and the dead—we may be ready for his coming.] For we must all appear before the Judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad." 2 Cor. 5:5-10. It is very clear that the scene to which St. Paul here looks by faith is what is to come after the judgment, and that in this chapter he is contrasting this mortal state with the immortal resurrection state, when the faithful shall be present with the Lord.