This testimony shows that the unjust do not enter into a place of punishment at death, but are reserved to the day of Judgment. Where are they reserved? Answer. In the general receptacle of the dead, the grave. See Job 21:30.
Rev. 20:5. “But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.”
By this first resurrection a portion of the dead are restored to life, consciousness, and activity, while it is said of those whose condition is not affected by this resurrection, that they lived not for a thousand years. This proves that up to the time of this resurrection, all the dead were in a condition just the opposite of life--a condition in which it might be said of them that they “lived not.” And this, mark, is spoken of the whole conscious being, not of the body merely. No language could more positively show that in death the whole person is in a state just the opposite of life.
Rev. 22:8, 9. “And I John ... fell down to worship before the feet of the angel which showed me these things. Then saith he unto me, See thou do it not; for I am thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren the prophets.”
This text is supposed to prove that one of the old prophets came to John as an angel, showing that the dead exist in a conscious state. But it does not so teach. The angel simply stated that he was John’s fellow-servant, and the fellow-servant of John’s brethren, the prophets, and the fellow-servant of them which keep the sayings of this book. The being of whom they were all worshipers together was the great God. Therefore, says the angel, do not worship me, since I am only a worshiper with you at the throne of God; but worship God. This angel had doubtless been sent to the ancient prophets to reveal things to them, as he had now come to John. Such we believe to be the legitimate teaching of this scripture, the last that is found in the book of God supposed to teach a conscious state.
CHAPTER XXV.
THE DEATH OF ADAM.
The inquirer into the nature of man, and his condition in death, must ever turn with the deepest interest to the record left us concerning the father of our race. In Adam we have an account of the origin of the human family, at once so simple and consistent that the jeers of skepticism fall harmless at its feet, and science, in comparison, only makes itself ridiculous, in trying to account for it in any other manner. And in the sentence pronounced upon him when he fell under the fearful guilt of transgression, we are shown to what condition death was designed to reduce the human family. In the creation and death of Adam, we have the account of the building up and the unbuilding of a human being; and this case, being the first and most illustrious, must furnish the precedent and establish the rule for the whole race.
Of the creation of Adam and the elements of which he was composed, we have already spoken. The record brings to view a formation made wholly of the dust of the ground. “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground.” This body was endowed with a high and perfect organization, and was quickened into life by the breath which the Lord breathed into its nostrils. The body, before it was made alive, had no power to act; the breath which was breathed into it could not of itself act; but the body being quickened, the machinery set in motion by this vital principle, all the phenomena of physical life and mental action at once resulted.
The Author of this noblest of creative works, who must of necessity, as the ruler over all, require the creatures of his hand to obey him, and toward whom an exercise of love, and a voluntary and willing submission, can alone constitute obedience, placed the man whom he had formed, as was meet, upon a state of probation, to test his loyalty to his Maker. The scene of his trial was the beautiful garden in which was everything that was pleasant to the sight and good for food; and over all that adorned or enriched his Eden home, with one exception, he had unlimited control. The condition upon which he was to be tested is thus definitely expressed:--
“And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”