Tuesday: “The Spirit Returns to God”
Read Genesis 2:7 and Ecclesiastes 12:1-7. What contrast can you see between these two biblical passages? How can they help us to understand better the human condition in death? See also Genesis 7:22.
As already seen, the Bible teaches that the human being is a soul (Genesis 2:7), and the soul ceases to exist when the body dies (Ezekiel 18:4, Ezekiel 18:20).
Image © Kevin Carden at Goodsalt.com
But what about the “spirit”? Does it not remain conscious even after the death of the body? Many Christians believe so, and they even try to justify their view by quoting Ecclesiastes 12:7, which says, “Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it” (NKJV). But this statement does not suggest that the spirit of the dead remains conscious in God’s presence.
Ecclesiastes 12:1-7 in quite dramatic terms describes the aging process, culminating with death. Verse 7 refers to death as the reversal of the creation process mentioned in Genesis 2:7. As already stated, on the sixth day of the Creation week “the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being” (Genesis 2:7, NKJV). But now, Ecclesiastes 12:7 tells us that “the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it” (NKJV). So, the breath of life that God breathed into the nostrils of Adam, and that He has also provided to all other human beings, returns to God or, in other words, simply stops flowing into and through them.
We should keep in mind that Ecclesiastes 12:7 describes the dying process of all human beings and does so without distinguishing between the righteous and the wicked. If the alleged spirits of all who die survive as conscious entities in the presence of God, then are the spirits of the wicked with God? This idea is not in harmony with the overall teaching of the Scriptures. Because the same dying process happens both to human beings and to animals (Ecclesiastes 3:19-20), death is nothing else than ceasing to exist as living beings. As stated by the psalmist, “You hide Your face, they are troubled; You take away their breath, they die and return to their dust” (Psalm 104:29, NKJV).
| We often say that death is just part of life. Why is that so wrong? Death is the opposite of life, the enemy of life. What great hope, then, is found in this verse: “The last enemy that will be destroyed is death” (1 Corinthians 15:26, NKJV)? |
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Seventh-day Adventists have a well-defined view of death backed up by proof texts. Yet even within that framework we still appear to want to correct one another with the details.
What is the breath that returns to God?
What do we mean by soul sleep?
... and so on?
It is comforting to be confident in your correctness but trying to correct others can be seriously unproductive.
I have a relative - no it's not Carmel - who insists on correcting me when I tell a story and leave out some of the detail for the sake of brevity and getting to the point.
There is a time for keeping silent when people have the wrong idea and there is a time to speak up. And we need the guidance of the Holy Spirit to know when.
Getting back to today's lesson. What is it that goes back to God on death?
This is not a very good illustration, but it was the best I could come up with between waking up and sitting in front of my computer:
I sometimes make photographic prints and give them to friends or sell them to strangers. One of my friends was mortified because her photograph of an Azure Kingfisher fell off the wall and was seriously damaged and had to be thrown away. In essence, the picture had died. Fortunately, I had the original file and was able to recreate the photograph for her (resurrect the photo if you like) The material representation of the photograph was destroyed but the source of the photograph was on my computer and was easy to recreate.
Now, I know you can pick holes in my illustration but the key idea is that the omnipotent God still has the source code for us, dead or alive. And we know that he is never going to lose that because "Jesus Saves". (OK that is a little play on computer technology jargon - but I hope you get the picture)
Maurice, thank you for this beautiful illustration I'll tell you why. I'm on a forum where I sometimes I facilitate the study of the Sabbath school lesson study (on a daily basis) and some of though share I share comes from your viewpoints others, I must credit the leading of the Holy Spirit. This past Sunday I was sharing with two of the group members some views from the lesson study as follows!
One of them suggested some things that I cannot resonate with, first, he is saying, when God created the body out of the dust of the ground, that entity was man, without the breath, is this a correct assumption? Next he's suggesting that body plus breath equals soul, holding on to the idea that there are now three separate entities that comprise man. Is this notion an accurate assumption? 😳Your response and I wouldn't mind a thesis I can handle it. Thanks. Ronald Ashley.
Ronald, thank you for your kind comments. Regarding the interchange with your friend: I think the creation story is more about the relationship that God wants with us than anything else. God's creation of man emphasizes the personal relationship. He made us and he gave us life. That is the important bit. And when we read further in Genesis we find that he does not abandon us when we are broken. He wants the relationship to continue. We can argue a lot about the body and breath thing, but if we overlook the relationship, we have lost the special message of creation.
When I create a photo and it does not turn out the way I want, I throw it away and start fresh (I can't tell you how many photos I throw away each year) But God does not abandon us. Rather, He offers to fix the broken. That is special.
Maurice,
You are so right. The pain of death is that it breaks the bonds of loving relationships.
Richard Ferguson
I think your illustration is perfect, Maurice. 😊 But that doesn't mean that someone else might find it less than perfect...
I agree.
I also agree, Inge. Maurice' illustration can certainly be helpful in understanding the basic concept, and that's probably the best we can do. If the nature of life and consciousness are a complete mystery to mankind, how much less can we understand what makes up the essence of the individual -- the soul!
For me, personally, it is enough to know that the death of the Christian believer is a sleep, both unconscious and temporary. When we come back, it is with a whole new body of an entirely different kind, immortal, according to I Corinthians 15, but we do come back as individuals, recognizable to our loved ones, and with a continuity of consciousness from this life. God is good!
Death is a very sad thing to happen! But thank God we have Jesus Who conquered death already. He died, and resurrected so we could conquer death also, not by our own merits, but by His, because of His sacrifice! Things may be simple, but sometimes we like to make them "romantic". The convincing part may not be ours.
What makes light?
A bulb and electricity - see above picture.
Without power it is just materials that belong to me, add electricity from the power company and I have light. If Eskom (power company in South Africa) turns off the electricity then I have no light.
Where does the electricity go? It stays in the generator.
God provides the 'spark of life' to keep a person living. It is also called the 'breath of life' or 'a spirit'. It comes from God flows through a person or it stops flowing and stays in God or returns to Him.
Amazing!! Every person is only alive because of power provided by God!!
I agree with Maurice that a discussion of the state of the dead should be approached with caution. As we know, most of Christendom believes that peoples’ spirit go to heaven or hell upon death. They like the comfort of thinking their loved one lives on in the after life and watches over them.
I have had some success getting people to stop and think by using Genesis 1:26, “Let us make Man after our Image”. At least for those who believe in a triune God, He is Mind (God the Father), Body(Christ) and Spirit (Holy Spirit). Without any one of the three we cease to be “Man”, as we are no longer in His likeness.
These are beautiful facts aiming at building our misled thoughts back to the divine truth.
If I recall correctly, Jesus told Mary on the resurrection morning - I’ve not shown myself to the father. Since Jesus is the only resurrected who has written testimony, I’m inclined to believe that his soul didn’t get transported to the father while he laid in the tomb.
Analogy Computer , the hardware = body , the software = soul and electricity the spirit that activates software . Remove electricity the software becomes dormant . The soul cannot funtion on its own without a body and lifegiving spirit At resurection the spirit return to a new spiritual body and the soul revived .
The phrase that death is just part of life is true in a sinful world. Yet, the statement is so wrong because death was never in God’s original plan when He created a perfect world, our solar system, in this Milky Way galaxy. 1 Corinthians 15:26 provides us with a great hope of life after death. This verse gives us great hope because death will be (1) destroyed forever, (2) no more separation, and (3) it will no longer be part of life. The assurance of death being the last enemy destroyed gives us hope of everlasting life. No more separation means no more generational gap (or generations), no more age hierarchy, and no more sad tears. Finally, death, no longer part of life, takes away the pain and suffering we experience today physically, mentally, and emotionally through the process of dying (human lifetime). Today’s lesson helps us understand the nature of the human condition that death is the reverse process of life. We were created by dust and will return to dust when our days are numbered on earth. We don’t have a conscious spirit that lives on a part from the body, but the spirit (breath of life) returns to God who gave it. How did God give His spirit? Let's look back how God made Adam a living soul, by breathing life into him (CPR). Christ the creator is the power source. When you turn the light switch off (in this case death), the power returns to the power source (Jesus’s breath).