Sabbath Afternoon - October 8
Memory Text:
“And 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 soul.” KJV — Genesis 2:7
“But what did Adam, after his sin, find to be the meaning of the words, “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die”? Did he find them to mean, as Satan had led him to believe, that he was to be ushered into a more exalted state of existence? Then indeed there was great good to be gained by transgression, and Satan was proved to be a benefactor of the race. But Adam did not find this to be the meaning of the divine sentence. God declared that as a penalty for his sin, man should return to the ground whence he was taken: “Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” Verse 19. The words of Satan, “Your eyes shall be opened,” proved to be true in this sense only: After Adam and Eve had disobeyed God, their eyes were opened to discern their folly; they did know evil, and they tasted the bitter fruit of transgression.” GC 532.2
“No man is safe for a day or an hour without prayer. Especially should we entreat the Lord for wisdom to understand His word. Here are revealed the wiles of the tempter and the means by which he may be successfully resisted. Satan is an expert in quoting Scripture, placing his own interpretation upon passages, by which he hopes to cause us to stumble. We should study the Bible with humility of heart, never losing sight of our dependence upon God. While we must constantly guard against the devices of Satan, we should pray in faith continually: “Lead us not into temptation.” GC 530.2
Sunday - October 9
A Living Being
Genesis 1:24-27; 2:7, 19
What similarities and differences can you see between the way God created the animals and the way He created humanity? What does Genesis 2:7 tell us about human nature?
“As the Supreme Ruler of the universe, God has ordained laws for the government not only of all living beings, but of all the operations of nature. Everything, whether great or small, animate or inanimate, is under fixed laws which cannot be disregarded. There are no exceptions to this rule; for nothing that the divine hand has made has been forgotten by the divine mind. But while everything in nature is governed by natural law, man alone, as an intelligent being, capable of understanding its requirements, is amenable to moral law. To man alone, the crowning work of His creation, God has given a conscience to realize the sacred claims of the divine law, and a heart capable of loving it as holy, just, and good; and of man prompt and perfect obedience is required. Yet God does not compel him to obey; he is left a free moral agent.” 1SM 216.2
“The mechanism of the human body cannot be fully understood; it presents mysteries that baffle the most intelligent. It is not as the result of a mechanism, which, once set in motion, continues its work, that the pulse beats and breath follows breath. In God we live and move and have our being. The beating heart, the throbbing pulse, every nerve and muscle in the living organism, is kept in order and activity by the power of an ever-present God.” MH 417.1
Eccl. 3:18-21 – “I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts. For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all is vanity. All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again. Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?”
Inspiration you see, first tells us how man was created and what he is like, then It asks point-blank: “Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?” – The only answer that can be given is that no one knows but God. And since He has told us that the body and soul together, not apart, make the soul, then it is plain that a dead man has no soul, that the body returns to dust, and the breath returns to breath, to wind. Moreover, whatever befalls the beast the same befalls the man. They both have one breath, declares Inspiration, and the one has no preeminence above the other.
Monday - October 10
The Soul Who Sins, Shall Die
Ezekiel 18:4, 20; Matthew 10:28
How can these verses help us understand the nature of the human soul?
“The only one who promised Adam life in disobedience was the great deceiver. And the declaration of the serpent to Eve in Eden—“Ye shall not surely die”—was the first sermon ever preached upon the immortality of the soul. Yet this declaration, resting solely upon the authority of Satan, is echoed from the pulpits of Christendom and is received by the majority of mankind as readily as it was received by our first parents. The divine sentence, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die” (Ezekiel 18:20), is made to mean: The soul that sinneth, it shall not die, but live eternally. We cannot but wonder at the strange infatuation which renders men so credulous concerning the words of Satan and so unbelieving in regard to the words of God.” GC 533.2
Gen. 2:7 – “And 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 soul.”
In this scripture we are told that God formed man out of the dust of the ground. Then the breath of life was breathed into his nostrils, and thus he became a living soul, that the breath and the body together are what make the soul. The process of development is the same as is the process of ice making – low temperature and water make ice just as the body and the breath make the soul. Hence when the breath leaves the body, man no longer is a living soul – no, no more than the ice is ice after it goes back to water. Man obviously has no existing soul after the breath leaves his body, for the body and the breath together make the soul.
“I know” says the wise man, “that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be forever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it: and God doeth it, that men should fear before him.” Eccl. 3:14.
Eccl. 9:5, 6 – “For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun.”
This is what God says about the soul, and we should believe Him rather than fool ourselves with uninspired theories of men who presumptuously say that the soul never dies, although God says, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” Ezek. 18:4. Hence, when man dies, his soul vanishes as does ice when the temperature rises above freezing.
Tuesday - October 11
The Spirit Returns to God
Genesis 2:7; 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.)
“The doctrine of man's consciousness in death, especially the belief that spirits of the dead return to minister to the living, has prepared the way for modern spiritualism…Here is a channel regarded as sacred, through which Satan works for the accomplishment of his purposes. The fallen angels who do his bidding appear as messengers from the spirit world. While professing to bring the living into communication with the dead, the prince of evil exercises his bewitching influence upon their minds.” GC 551.2
Ezekiel 37:1-10 – “The hand of the Lord was upon me, and carried me out in the Spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones, and caused me to pass by them round about: and, behold, there were very many in the open valley; and, lo, they were very dry. And He said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, Thou knowest. Again He said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the Word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live: and I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live; and ye shall know that I am the Lord.
So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone. And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above: but there was no breath in them. Then said He unto me, Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord God; Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live. So I prophesied as He commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army.”
Here we learn that the process of resurrection is the same as the process of creation: first the frame of the man, then the organism, the flesh, the skin, and last the breath, and again he becomes a living soul. Man’s soul or spirit, you see, is not called down from heaven, or up from hell. In fact, not a soul at all, but wind from the four corners of the earth fills his lungs at the command of God, and thus he again becomes a living soul. Then, too, the material of which man was composed originally, of the same shall he be made again, for bone to bone come together. When he is thus re-created or resurrected, though, he must retain the knowledge and memory which he had at his death, otherwise the man that is raised would not be the man that died, and if such be not his case, then the experience gained in this life would be lost.
Wednesday - October 12
The Dead Know Nothing
Job 3:11-13; Psalm 115:17; Psalm 146:4
What can we learn from these passages about the condition of human beings at death?
But none need be deceived by the lying claims of Spiritualism. God has given the world sufficient light to enable them to discover the snare. As already shown, the theory which forms the very foundation of Spiritualism is at war with the plainest statements of Scripture. The Bible declares that the dead know not anything, that their thoughts have perished; they have no part in anything that is done under the sun; they know nothing of the joys or sorrows of those who were dearest to them on earth. GC88 556.1
Perhaps foremost among the multitudes who are snared while doing all they can to run away from inspired interpretation of the Scriptures are the extremists, of whom there are at least two classes: one with the tendency to literalize, the other with the tendency to spiritualize.
Take for example the Revelator’s statement: “…I saw under the alter the souls of them that were slain for the Word of God,…and they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost Thou not judge and avenge our blood?” Rev. 6:9, 10.
The literalist on the one hand, would interpret this scripture to mean that the souls were conscious and actually crying out, though the Bible is very explicit that “the dead know not anything.” Eccles. 9:5. And, too, were the souls under the altar literally crying out for vengeance on their murderers, then, to be consistent, the Lord’s statement, “the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto Me from the ground” (Gen. 4:10), also the statement, “all the trees of the field shall clap their hands” (Isa. 55:12), likewise must be interpreted literally in spite of the fact that it is impossible physically for blood to cry out and for trees to clap hands.
If all, however, are obliged to admit that Abel’s blood could not literally cry out, and that trees can only figuratively clap hands, then, again to be consistent, the person given to extreme literalizing should easily take hold of the actuality that “the dead know not anything,” and that they are “asleep” – unconscious. He ought easily, too, to perceive that the souls of the martyrs crying for vengeance on their murderers, and that the blood of Abel crying for vengeance on his murderer, are cases virtually identical in circumstance and condition. Both of these find pointed illustration in the poetic utterance: “I hear a voice crying out, the voice of the withering field: O, Lord, pity Thou me. Let showers fall from heaven. Quench Thou my burning soul.”
For one’s soul to be imprisoned consciously under something for hundreds of years, with nothing to do but groaningly to languish in waiting for the resurrection morning, the while crying out for vengeance on them that spilled one’s blood, – what an inexpressibly unbearable state for one’s soul to be in!
The doctrine, though, of the unconscious state of the dead not only puts at peace the worried human mind but also ascribes to God mercy and love toward helpless human beings, thus being the only position on the subject that can lead the sinner rationally to love God and to trust in Him.
Thursday - October 13
Resting with the Forefathers
Genesis 25:8; 2Samuel 7: 12; 1Kings 2:10; 1Kings 22:40
What do these texts add to your understanding of death?
“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. 1 Thessalonians 4:14; Job 14:10-12. In the very day when the silver cord is loosed and the golden bowl broken (Ecclesiastes 12:6), man's thoughts perish. They that go down to the grave are in silence. They know no more of anything that is done under the sun. Job 14:21. Blessed rest for the weary righteous! Time, be it long or short, is but a moment to them. They sleep; they are awakened by the trump of God to a glorious immortality. “For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible.... So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.” 1 Corinthians 15:52-54. As they are called forth from their deep slumber they begin to think just where they ceased. The last sensation was the pang of death; the last thought, that they were falling beneath the power of the grave. When they arise from the tomb, their first glad thought will be echoed in the triumphal shout: “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” Verse 55.” GC 549.3
Someone may ask, If the names of the dead who have not in Christ endured to the end of their lives, must be blotted out of the book of life, then why---DID CHRIST PREACH TO THE DEAD?
1 Pet. 3:18-20
In the same scripture giving rise to this question, is also the answer: “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: by which also He went and preached unto the spirits in prison; which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.” 1 Pet. 3:18-20.
This scripture does not say that Christ in person, while His body lay in the tomb, preached to the spirits in prison, as is understood by some; instead, it says that He, through the medium of the Spirit by Whom He was resurrected, preached to them “in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing.” Nor does it say that Christ preached to the dead, but rather “unto the spirits in prison.” Hence, the concern as to whether “the spirits in prison” mean the dead or the living, is a matter of interpretation, and such an interpretation must come of divine authority.
Nowhere do we find in the Bible, when It is referring to the dead, that It calls them spirits, but It does thus designate the living. Moreover, the Word plainly says that “the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not anything, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun.” Eccl. 9:5, 6.
Still further, the Lord makes it exceedingly plain in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus that after death there is no chance at all for one’s salvation, – no, not even for a drop of cold water, – for the rich man’s plea in death was denied him, and he was told: “Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.” Luke 16:25, 26.
This parable teaches that the only way any of us can be saved from hell’s torment is to “hear Moses and the prophets” while we are yet alive, and that if we hear them not, then the Lord cannot help us after death. It also teaches that if we are not persuaded by them, neither will we “be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.” Luke 16:29-31.Hence, as there is no chance for salvation after death, then if any, while living, have failed to hear “Moses and the prophets,” why should Christ preach to them after they die? “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” Matt. 22:32.
Consequently, the “spirits in prison” cannot be any others than the antediluvians to whom Christ, by the Spirit which raised Him, preached through Noah before the flood, while the inhabitants of that world were imprisoned by the circumstances of the coming flood, from the certain consequences of which they could not escape. The statement, “Wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water,” proves further that it was by the Spirit of Christ in Noah’s preaching that Christ before the flood visited the spirits in prison and saved eight souls – Noah and his family. Thus “the Spirit of Christ which was in” “the prophets,” also “did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow.” 1 Pet. 1:10, 11.
Friday - October 14
Further Study
But someone asks: If it is true that Christ did not preach to the dead, then what about those dead who were---LEFT WITHOUT A CHANCE?
The law of death cannot be reversed by any one’s ignorance of God. Moreover, says the Lord to His prophet: “When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand.” Ezek. 3:18. As this scripture clearly teaches that those who have died in their sins cannot be rescued by being preached to after death, even though through the watchmen’s neglect they have been left without a chance, then those who have died in ignorance through their own neglect instead of the watchmen’s, as was the case with the antediluvian world, would be even less excusable, and would have neither need nor right to be preached to after death, even though it were possible.
Those who have never had a chance to hear the prophets, – to them “the heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth His handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.” Ps. 19:1-3. All are to be judged according to the light God has revealed to them. And those who have had a chance, but have failed, to learn of God, will not be condemned for being in error, but for failing to get acquainted with truth. This being so, then why are some---BAPTIZED FOR THE DEAD?
1 Cor. 15:29
Paul, speaking of the resurrection, makes plain to the Corinthians that if there is no resurrection of the dead, then neither is there salvation in Christ.
“And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ: Whom He raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: and if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at His coming. Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead?” 1 Cor. 15:14-22, 29.
It cannot rightly be understood from this scripture that the living are, or must be, baptized for the dead, for Paul does not question the effect that the baptism would have on those who are dead, but rather the effect that it would have on those who are alive, for he asks: “What shall they [the living] do which are baptized for the dead? Not: What shall the dead do for whom we, the living, have been baptized? In other words, his contention is that for their own benefit they themselves were “baptized for the dead,” not for the living – not baptized with the thought of living on forever, but rather with the thought of dying in the hope of being raised on the resurrection day. Hence, they were baptized for the dead (to pass through the grave, the state of death), not for the living, as will be those who are baptized about the time of Christ’s coming, and who will make up that immortal company of saints who, being alive and remaining when He appears with His angels, “shall,” says Paul, “be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air.” 1 Thess. 4:17.
Therefore, those who shall be found living when Christ appears, having been baptized before His appearing, are baptized for the living instead of for the dead, because they shall never die. This thought evoked in the mind of the Spirit Who was in Paul, the question: “What shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all?”
And finally, if the early Christians were to baptize themselves for others who had died without baptism, such a commandment would have been given in the Scriptures, and such baptismal services would have been recorded; but the Bible commands baptisms only for the living, to whom it says: “Repent, and be baptized.” And then let your faith be---PRACTICAL, NOT THEORETICAL ONLY.