Friday: Further Thought ~ Understanding Human Nature
Further Thought: Read Ellen G. White, “The First Great Deception,” Pages 531-550, in The Great Controversy.
If you have ever been in surgery and were put out with general anesthesia, you might have a faint idea of what it must be like for the dead.
Image © Stan Myers from GoodSalt.com
But even then, when under anesthesia, your brain still functions. Imagine what it would be like for the dead, when all brain function, everything, has totally stopped. Their experience in death, then, is to close their eyes and, as far as each dead person who ever lived is concerned, the next thing they will know is either the second coming of Jesus or His return after the millennium (see Revelation 20:7-15). Until then, all the dead, the righteous and the wicked, rest, for what will seem to them to be an instant. For those of us who remain alive, death seems as if it lasts for a long time. For the living it does; but for the dead it seems to last only an instant.
“If it were true that the souls of all men passed directly to heaven at the hour of dissolution, then we might well covet death rather than life. Many have been led by this belief to put an end to their existence. When overwhelmed with trouble, perplexity, and disappointment, it seems an easy thing to break the brittle thread of life and soar away into the bliss of the eternal world.” — Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, p. 539.
“Nowhere in the Sacred Scriptures is found the statement that the righteous go to their reward or the wicked to their punishment at death. The patriarchs and prophets have left no such assurance. Christ and His apostles have given no hint of it. The Bible clearly teaches that the dead do not go immediately to heaven. They are represented as sleeping until the resurrection.” — Pages 549, 550.
Discussion Questions:
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I come back to the issue that, being confident in our doctrines is one thing, but transmitting those ideas into the real world is much more difficult than shouting that we are right. It is one thing to understand human nature from a spiritual perspective but it is entirely different to apply that in real life.
I am sure that most of us know the right-of-way rules on the road. In Australia, it is well understood that when you are on a road roundabout you have right of way; everyone else has to give way to you. But if there is a thundering great double-B 56-wheel truck pushing its way in, what use is it to shout that you know the rules. It requires a higher order of thinking - the real issue is survival.
I am not suggesting that we must compromise our beliefs, but we do need to rethink our strategy so that our Christianity is meaningful to others. This is one reason why I have emphasized the practical approach to death and dying this week. Atheists agree with us that "The dead know not anything", but both Atheists and Christians suffer from feelings of grief and indeed guilt at the loss of a loved one or friend. Death provides an opportunity for practicing empathy. It is the big truck on the roundabout on the road of life, pushing everything in its path. It is no respecter of persons.
Understanding the theological underpinnings of the nature of humanity is useful when we can apply it to understand one another now.
To your point, a short story from my experience. We must know when to provide the good news!
I was teaching 2nd grade in a rural community in Michigan. It was the Pre School week. Two people were introduced to me by the social worker. "I'd like you to meet Big Billy and Little Billy. I'm going to let you decide which one is which". She chuckled and left the room. There they stood, smiling. Both had on the finest denim overalls and it was obvious neither had missed any meals in the recent past. But there was a difference. One was taller than the other. Father and son lived alone in a trailer park nearby. Big Billy had something to say to me before the school year began. "Teacher?" he said, 'Teach my son!'. That was all. I could tell from his tone that his son was his pride and joy. He'd wanted to meet his teacher. Then they and their many pocketed overalls left the room, awaiting the beginning of school.
Little Billy had a dog. If you know anything about boys and their dogs, you know his dog was his pride and joy. I can see him playing in the park with his friends and their dogs. Big Billy always making sure there was food for the dog. I can see him watching TV with the dog and generally loving and enjoying his company.
Little Billy was sort of a loner, in the classroom, at least. His few conversations were not wasted on the teacher. So, when he came directly to my desk before starting his school day, some months later, I gave him my full attention. 'Teacher?' he began, reminiscent of a bigger Billy. 'Yes?' I answered. "Muh dawg died last night". 'O Billy, I murmured softly, I'm so sorry" He looked down for just a moment, but then brightened...he had good news to follow the bad news. "He's alright , Teacher. He's up in heaven and Grandmaw and Grandpaw B. are taking care of him. He's alright!" I smiled at him then, and he went quietly to his seat having delivered the news.
Somehow the theological moment seemed to have passed....May we all be 'alright!".
Hello there, if we should read the story of Lazarus, Martha, Mary we will see during this moment no heaven was mentioned by none of them, Lazarus was a few days dead he even was discomposing according to the scriptures, just imagine if Lazarus was already in heaven, and Jesus went to raise him from the dead, imagine Lazarus is enjoying some heavenly mana in heaven and Jesus calls upon him to reenter into his earthly body, it makes no sense, do you think that Lazarus after being in heaven for a few days would want to reenter into his sick body here on earth I don't think so, it simply does not make sense...
My knowledge of the state of the dead.
The body and the combination of the breath of life from God is a living soul. An airplane is in distress, one thing that is asked, is how many souls on board. The pilot is dead so that is minus one soul. Not quite that simple. If they all were dead and the airplane on autopilot there is no communication. I believe that the breath of life from God, which we all get, is combined with the body to create a living soul. When the breath leaves the body, the soul is dead within a short time. Now the soul that sins will die. All have sinned. We all will die, except those in Christ who are living at Christ second coming, are caught up in the air with those who have been in Christ and are resurrected. 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17. Now someone will pull out John 11:25 and say, Christ said we would not die if we are in Christ. Christ was talking about the second death.
Now I find it hard to know exactely what the spirit is, which makes it dificult to explain. Yes I agree, I may not get through to someone on my belief. I also am like most of you, it is better not to argue, or debate. However I should be ready to give an account of my belief. 1Peter 3:15
When we die we do not know anything any longer, that means the soul knows nothing until resurrected by Christ. Just like the light bulb in the pictorial illistration in this weeks lesson, when death doth accure, we no longer can shine as a light, the electricity keeping us alive is gone. There is no brain in our spirit, rather the spirit is supported by a living brain. God gave us the spark of life. That spark found in the breath of life is no longer a part of our conciousness, it is gone, and with it our conciousness, because we are dead and do not know anything. Ecclesiastes 9:5. We are unable to know anything until Christ resurects us who are in Christ. Good incentive to be in Christ.
Why cannot death be as simple as resurection? Which is: God giving life again. I believe that with death the body, soul and spirit is dead(knows nothing)(death is being in a sleep you have no power to wake up from)until resurrected By Christ, who is the resurrection and the life. John 11:25.
Hi, John. Thank you for your thoughts. I especially like your observation that the spirit has no brain, leading to the conclusion that one's spirit is incapable of any conscious existence apart from the body. By the way, you may have missed the general consensus that the breath (of life) and the spirit are synonymous.
Now, just for the sake of stirring up thought, please allow me to question the oft-repeated maxim that body + breath (or spirit) = soul. To my mind, Genesis 2:7 doesn't actually say that. This verse is a narrative, describing what happened. Essentially, God formed the body, gave it a spirit, and a soul (a unique individual) was created.
The soul, by definition, is the essence of the individual. Does it really consist of nothing more than the sum of two parts, body and spirit? And is the spirit really nothing more than the "spark of life," as we so often hear? It seems to me that these two propositions are mere assumptions, unsupported by any clear "thus saith the Lord." If they were true, then there would be nothing but physical differences in the body to distinguish one individual from another. And, personally, that's not how I see reality. It doesn't seem entirely consistent with the rest of Scripture, although I may not be prepared to cite chapter and verse.
That kind of materialism, if you please, leads to silly questions like whether our new bodies will be made of anything from our old bodies. Of course not! It also leads to questionable conclusions like, if your parents had never met, you wouldn't have existed. Well, we don't actually know that.
I agree with you that we really don't know what all makes up a person's spirit. I might suggest that this could also be true in regard to the soul. We don't have to be in a position to explain, or to pretend that we know, everything. Can't we just be happy with what God has chosen to reveal, like the unconscious state of the dead, and the certainty of our personal resurrection?
While I do want to stir up thought with these questions, it's not my intention to stir up controversy. I just wonder if our tendency to oversimplify things a bit might sometimes be unhelpful.
Good points. And to add to our lack of understanding we may want to consider people who lived for extensive periods of time while in vision with no breathe and were taken to other places without their bodies ie Paul and Ellen White.
I equate ‘death’ with the sleep-state during one’s nighttime rest. When seeking to fall asleep we do not experience any trepidations, we just 'trust' that we wake up the next day to continue on living.
My mom passed away at age 97. She was tired from living a long, full of burdens, life. Experiencing two world wars, the death of loved ones and friends and the destruction of her beloved childhood 'home' and the loss of her homeland weight heavy on her. At about 95, she started to feel strongly that she preferred to be 'home' with her Maker. When laying down to sleep, she always asked Him to grant her desire. Eventually He accepted her wish and welcomed her ‘home’ during her sleep.
We never had any discussion about where one is when not waking up the next morning or not surviving the day due to uncontrollable circumstances. Being absent in body is being present with the Lord was always the ‘being at home’ aspect which our mind focused on.
The spirit God gave returned to Him, her body is still in the grave together with her mom, our dad, and his first wife who died in childbirth. The 100 years lease for the grave will run out in 3 or 4 years and my siblings and I need to come to terms with that someone else will use the plot to burry their dead. The remains will need to be removed, together with the grave stones and everything else. The cost - about 7000.- Euro.
Gen. 2:7; Gen.3:19 - Yes, we learn that our body is made from that which is from the ground, but the spirit which God gave us to become a living soul is from Him and is awayting the resurrection. He breathed life into our nostrils so we are able to recognize Him and His Glory and to always share His Love to comfort those who do not know Him.
Why are books from the Apocrypha quoted in the ‘Immortality of the Soul of Pagan Origin’ section of the Teachers Comments on this lesson?
They are there to provide background material on how the doctrine of the immortality of the soul developed and came to be accepted by Christians. It helps us understand how other folk think.
H'mm, Glenda, you must be referring to the section beginning,
I didn't write the Teacher Comments, but it seems to me that the books of the Apocrypha are the most readily available record and evidence of what happened to Judaism during the intertestamental period.
I didn't realize that Plato was roughly a contemporary of Malachi, and thus the prevalence of Greek culture and Plato's teachings helps explains why and how the notion of an immortal soul crept even into Judaism to the extent that Flavius Josephus mentioned that the Pharisees believed in the immortal soul. (I wouldn't take that as proof that most of the Pharisees believed that, but still ... )
It is very important to understand that the human being as a whole is only conscious (alive) when two things are united, the body made of dust (earth) and the breath of life, which is the Spirit of God who gave it. When those two elements are combined it is called a living soul. There is no such thing as a dead (alive) soul. It helps us to know that we don’t have a conscious spirit separated from the body like a form of a ghost or an invisible/hidden soul. If this is true, then God is a liar. And, Satan was right when he said to our first mother, Eve, that we won’t surely die. The bible says that God alone is immortal (1 Timothy 6:16), and created creatures, beings, and angels don’t have that power to remain alive after death.
The bible truth about the state of the dead is so crucial because God alone is immortal and no one has the power to remain alive after death like a form of a ghost-like spirit. We have to realize that we are only alive because of God’s loving power. Taking away the loving power of God’s spiritual breath reverses the human body/condition to a lifeless state (from dust shall we return). When people hear the biblical teaching of the state of the dead, even among Christians, who oppose the idea of a loved one resting (sleeping until Christ’s returns) are holding on to a false pagan belief, or of a loved one looking over them (from heaven) on earth is something he or she can’t let go due to their emotional belief, or other theological teachings, after knowingly, reading, and hearing the biblical truth about the human nature of death. The bible truth can be shocking to them from their personal understanding of what happens when a person dies. This can come from his or her first-hand experience where he or she had a near death experience, where it seems like one is floating in the air, or seeing a loved one in a dream, or even communicating with the dead through a medium or fortune teller who can contact the other side. All of these emotional beliefs, near death experiences, and spiritualism practices are not the bible truth when a person dies. And, when we don’t know the bible truth about the topic of death (or decide not to believe the bible truth about the human nature of death) can be easily and vulnerably deceived by the devil's lies and illusions.
Understanding the bible truth about the concept of death protects us from what we see before our eyes. Because, what we see before our eyes can seem real when a dead loved one appears in front of us. Three things come to mind of how the bible truth about death can protect us from misunderstandings and lies. (1) We won’t be deceived, (2) the devil and his demons are real, and (3) there is only one truth about death. Number (1) protects us from being deceived about what happens when a person dies. There are media channels, best-seller books, near death experiences stories, fictional characters, folklore, and religious beliefs out there about life after death or that we possess an immortal soul apart from the body when we die. This belief distorts the truth about God’s power, love, and a person’s salvation. If what we see, hear and read doesn’t confirm the bible truth about the topic of death or any other topic against bible teachings protects us from being deceived from lies and from the wicked one himself. Speaking of the wicked one, number (2) protects us from the devil and his demons who disguised themselves to be our dead loved ones through illusions like their physical appearance, sound, and action. And, number (3) protects us from other worldview beliefs and theories that have insights of what it's like to be on the other side, or the afterlife, because we know as believing and practicing Christians that there is only one truth about the human nature of death, and that’s the Bible Truth.
The bible hope in the Old Testament and the Christian hope of the New Testament, never puts the hope in the natural immortality of the soul. Rather, the Blessed Hope is always on the resurrection of the body. The scripture makes it clear that the resurrection is only for the dead. If the notion of a conscious immortal soul separated from the body already receiving its reward after death in heaven or hell is true, then there is no need for the resurrection of a body already decomposed and returned to dust. And, if it is true that there is such a thing as an immortal soul/spirit apart from the body as a separate entity, then Jesus Christ didn’t need to be crucified and die on the cross to save us from our sins. Also, we make God a liar when our first parents, Adam and Eve, ate the forbidden fruit that will mark their death sentence and the rest of the human race. But, why would Adam and Eve be scared of eating the forbidden fruit that pronounced their death sentence if there is such a thing as the natural immortality of the soul that lives forever. Thank goodness the bible makes it clear about the condition of human nature becoming a living soul, not a dead soul (you’re either alive or dead). It takes a body made from the earth/dust and God’s breath (spirit) to create a human being to become a living soul (Genesis 2:7). The same God that brought life originally into existence, from a lifeless form into life, has the power to bring back life again by his resurrection power with our same identity and unique characteristics that we possess individually and that people recognize.