The state of the dead and the destiny of the wicked

by Uriah Smith

To the Philippians, Paul testifies again on this point: “For our conversation is in Heaven, from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body.” This language is explicit. A change is to be wrought in the vile, mortal or corruptible body of this present state, not a spiritual body released from it, which never sees death and needs no change; and the change that is promised is, that this body taken as it now is, is to be fashioned, changed over, into the likeness of Christ’s glorious, immortal body.

Having thus shown that a future resurrection is an event of the most absolute necessity, inasmuch as without it there is no future existence for the human race (a fact which entirely destroys at one blow the doctrine of the immortality of the soul), we now propose to notice the prominence given to this event in the sacred writings, and some of the plain declarations that it will surely take place.

1. The resurrection is the great event to which the sacred writers looked forward as the object of their hope. In the far distant ages a day rose to their view in which the dead came forth from their graves, and stood before God; and before the coming of that day, they did not expect eternal life.

So Job testifies: “I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he will stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.” Job 19:25, 26.

David entertained the same satisfactory hope. “As for me,” he says, “I shall be satisfied when I awake with Thy likeness.” Ps. 17:15.

Isaiah struck some thrilling notes on the same theme: “Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust; for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead.” Isa. 26:19.

It was the hope of Paul, that eminent apostle, through all his sufferings and toils. For this he could sacrifice any temporal good, and take up any cross. He assures us that he considered his afflictions, his troubles on every side, his perplexities, persecutions, stripes, imprisonments, and perils, but light afflictions; yea, he could utterly lose sight of them; and then he tells us why he could do it: it was in view of “the glory which shall be revealed in us,” “knowing,” says he, “that He which raised up the Lord Jesus, shall raise us up also by Jesus, and shall present us with you.” 2 Cor. 4:14. The assurance that he should be raised up at the last day, and be presented with the rest of the saints, when the Lord shall present to his Father a church without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, Eph. 5:27, sustained him under all his burdens. The resurrection was the staff of his hope. Again he says that he could count all things loss, if by any means he might attain to a resurrection (exanastasis) out from among the dead. Phil. 3:8-11.

We refer to one more passage which expresses as clearly as language can do it, the apostle’s hope. 2 Cor. 1:8, 9: “For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life. But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead.” Paul here gives us to understand that he could not trust in himself because he was mortal. He must therefore put his trust in God; and he tells us why he does this: not because God had promised him any happiness as a disembodied soul; but because he was able and willing to raise him from the dead. Paul “kept back nothing that was profitable,” and did not shun “to declare all the counsel of God,” yet he never once endeavored to console himself or his brethren by any allusion to a disembodied state of existence, but passed over this as if it were not at all to be taken into the account, and fixed all his hope on the resurrection. Why this, if going to Heaven or hell at death, be a gospel doctrine?

2. The resurrection is the time to which prophets and apostles looked forward as the day of their reward. Should any one carefully search the Bible to ascertain the time which it designates as the time of reward to the righteous, and punishment to the wicked, he would find it to be not at death, but at the resurrection. Our Saviour clearly sets forth this fact in Luke 14:13, 14: “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,” not at death, but, “at the resurrection of the just.”

Mark also the language by which the Lord would restrain that voice of weeping which was heard in Ramah. When Herod sent forth and slew all the children in Bethlehem from two years old and under, in hopes thereby to put to death the infant Saviour, then was fulfilled, says Matthew, what was spoken by the prophet, “In Ramah was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they were not.” But what said the Lord to Rachel? See the original prophecy, Jer. 31:15-17: “Thus saith the Lord, Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears; for thy work shall be rewarded, saith the Lord; and they shall come again from the land of the enemy. And there is hope in thine end, saith the Lord, that thy children shall come again to their own border.” Not thus would the mourning Rachels of the 19th century be comforted by the professed shepherds of the flock of Christ. They would tell them, Refrain thy voice from weeping; for thy sons are now angel cherubs chanting their joyful anthems in their Heavenly Father’s home. But the Lord points the mourners in Ramah forward to the resurrection for their hope; and though till that time their children “were not,” or were out of existence, in the land of death, the great enemy of our race, yet, says the Lord, they shall come again from the land of the enemy, they shall return again to their own border, and thy work shall be rewarded; and he bids them refrain their voices from weeping, their eyes from tears, and their hearts from sorrow, in view of that glorious event.