What the Bible says about Hope of the Resurrection
(From Forerunner Commentary)

Genesis 3:4-5

We must acknowledge a foundational truth: Contrary to conventional wisdom, the human soul is not immortal. This is a false teaching that was implanted into human religion when Satan convinced Eve of it in the Garden of Eden. Essentially, the Devil tells her that God is a liar, she will not die, and in fact, eating of the Tree of Knowledge would make her like God, a goddess with the same abilities as the Creator Himself. Satan's deceptive assurance that she would not die—taking the sting out of God's command—was central to her decision to eat of the fruit.

Elsewhere, the Bible flatly asserts that humans are physical, mortal beings. First, of course, is God's own warning in Genesis 2:17 that, upon eating the fruit of the forbidden tree, "you shall surely die"—in other words, sin ultimately ends in death, both the physical death of the human body and in due course the destruction of man's spiritual component in the judgment (see Revelation 20:14-15; John 5:29). The apostle writes in Hebrews 9:27, "It is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment." Twice in Ezekiel 18, God declares that souls die: "The soul who sins shall die" (Ezekiel 18:4, 20), which the apostle Paul echoes in Romans 6:23: "For the wages of sin is death." Finally, Jesus warns in Matthew 10:28 that God can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.

In fact, the Bible says only God has true immortality (I Timothy 6:15-16). Human beings can have immortality only through Christ and only through the resurrection from the dead, according to the pattern set by Jesus in His resurrection to eternal life (I Corinthians 15:22, 45-52). So, while true Christians have eternal life in them through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, it is only an earnest, down payment, or guarantee of the fullness of eternal life that will be given at the resurrection (see II Corinthians 5:1-5; Ephesians 1:13-14).

As Job 32:8 says, man has a spirit that provides him with understanding, and Paul explains in I Corinthians 2:11 that it endows humanity with intellect. This spirit in man comes from God (Zechariah 12:1) and returns to Him when we die (Ecclesiastes 12:7; Acts 7:59). It records the events of our lives, our characters, and our personalities, which God somehow stores until the resurrection, when it will be returned, restoring each person's full memory and characteristics. However, the Bible never describes this human spirit as immortal or eternal; in fact, John 6:63 and Romans 8:10-11 explains that man needs that other spirit, God's Holy Spirit, to achieve eternal life.

So, what happens when a person dies? Again, the early chapters of Genesis provide a fundamental answer: "In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for dust you are, and to dust you shall return" (Genesis 3:19). Humans, then, die and their bodies naturally decompose, breaking down into the elemental components of which they are made. The biblical usage of the Hebrew word Sheol and the Greek Hades—which some, following pagan thought, contend is a place where the spirits of the dead live on after death—actually means "the grave" or "the pit," describing the place of burial.

Every human that has died, with the exception of Jesus Christ, remains in his grave, whether it is in the earth or in the sea. Even David, righteous and beloved of God, awaits the resurrection in his grave. In Acts 2:29, Peter says to the crowd on the day of Pentecost, "Men and brethren, let me speak freely to you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. . . ."

Scripture also explains that in death, life and consciousness are absent. Solomon writes in Ecclesiastes 9:5, "The dead know nothing," and he later adds, "There is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going" (verse 10). The psalmist writes in Psalm 146:4 about a person's death, "His spirit departs, he returns to his earth; in that very day his plans perish." Thus, while God retrieves our human spirit for safekeeping, it has no inherent life, self-awareness, or any kind of functionality. It requires a living body to work, so once the body dies, it is inanimate, a mere record of a life but without life in itself.

In addition, while it is a record of a person's life, it is not the person himself. The Bible declares that people do not go to heaven (or to hell, for that matter) after death. In the same Pentecost sermon in Acts 2, Peter asserts, "For David did not ascend into the heavens" (Acts 2:34). Jesus Himself confirms this in John 3:13: "No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven." These direct statements confirm that all the dead, rather than going to heaven or hell or some sort of purgatory, await the resurrection in the sleep of death. They all await this call, which Paul bases on Isaiah 26:19: "Awake, you who sleep, arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light" (Ephesians 5:14).

It is encouraging to see what Isaiah 26:19 says: "Your dead shall live; together with my dead body they shall arise. Awake and sing, you who dwell in dust; . . . and the earth shall cast out the dead." In that great resurrection, just as in the first resurrection, God will give "eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality" (Romans 2:7). Thus, not only a Christian's hope of life after death rests in the resurrection of the dead, but even though they do not realize it, it is also the hope of all those who have never had the opportunity for salvation.

When that occurs, it will be clear that, indeed, "Death is swallowed up in victory" (I Corinthians 15:54)!

Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Death Is Not the End (Part Seven)

Job 14:1-2

Job begins his discussion of humanity's potential after death with marked negativity. Clearly, he woke up on the wrong side of the ash heap that morning!

Like Solomon, Job is probably referring to man without God; he sounds doubtful that anyone cut off from Him will live again. Due to the severe trial he is enduring, he views life with a terribly jaundiced eye. Why would a man want to live again after a life like this one? This life is so brief and full of turmoil that a tree seems to have better prospects of living again than a man does! Unlike a tree, a person who has died does not shoot out new and green to live again; if a man is planted in the ground, he does not pop out of the soil after gentle rain and sunshine! No, without God, a dead person just lies in his grave.

Notice, however, what he believes are his own chances for an afterlife:

Oh, that You would hide me in the grave, that You would conceal me until Your wrath is past, that You would appoint me a set time, and remember me! If a man dies, shall he live again? All the days of my hard service I will wait, till my change comes. You shall call, and I will answer You; You shall desire the work of Your hands. (Job 14:13-15)

He desires to die and rest in his grave until God recalls him to life! If nothing else, Job understands that with God is the power to give life even after death. Many commentators see this as Job's wish that there were an afterlife, but it is his hope. At the time, it was his only and most fervent expectation. He hoped that God would judge him as a righteous man and call him from his grave to live again, changed from dust to something far better, because God would desire to see him and engage in a close relationship with him again.

Despite his cynicism regarding mankind in general, Job concludes that death is not the end of the line for those who fear God and have a relationship with Him.

Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Death Is Not the End (Part Four)

Ecclesiastes 3:11

God has endowed us with the sense of the future and with a curiosity about what goes on beyond the grave: Is there life beyond the grave? Do we have immortality? Is this life all there is? He has made man with the capacity to think about these matters. Unfortunately, as Solomon says, nobody can figure out what He is doing. Without vision, people perish (Proverbs 29:18); without revelation, people cast off restraint—they go off the path.

"They do not know what He is doing from the beginning" does not refer to what He is doing in His creative acts but the purpose of life. His purpose has been revealed to us that we might have the same hope that God has for us: to share all eternity with Him and live as He does. If we have caught the vision and understand what the resurrection is—the doorway through which we step to continue in all of its fulness the kind of life that God has already introduced to us and we have begun to put into practice—we realize that we will be able to continue as His companions, His children for all eternity. This is what the resurrection represents!

John W. Ritenbaugh
The Resurrection From the Dead

Ecclesiastes 3:18-19

This is quite a cynical perspective of death. Solomon penned Ecclesiastes in his old age, when he could look back on his wearisome years of searching for answers and experimenting and come to a few conclusions about life. An inference about death appears in Ecclesiastes 3:20-21: "All go to one place: all are from the dust, and all return to dust. Who knows the spirit of the sons of men, which goes upward, and the spirit of the animals, which goes down to the earth?"

Again, his outlook seems negative. He concludes that in many ways human beings are no better than animals, which is certainly the case when they try to live without God. Men simply die like beasts. Like animals, people are air-breathing, fleshly creatures, and when we can no longer breathe or our flesh is starved, diseased, wounded, or exhausted, we die like them. When we die, our bodies decompose, returning to dust just as their bodies do.

Yet, in Ecclesiastes 3:21, Solomon raises a question (paraphrased): "What do we really know about the human spirit as opposed to the spirit of a beast?" Do we actually know that a man's spirit goes upward and a beast's spirit returns to the earth? What can we observe? If we use scientific methods, what can we really find out? Nothing, because such a question involving spiritual matters is beyond science, beyond man's ability to measure or record.

Previously, in Ecclesiastes 3:11, Solomon had written that God has put eternity in man's heart—a yearning to live forever—so he has already conceded that God gives man the edge over beasts. He realizes that man is a special creation of God, made after the God-kind, who has been given dominion over the earth and all in it (Genesis 1:26), so his skeptical question conceals the fact that he believes that man's chances for life after death are far better than an animal's.

Ecclesiastes 12:7 reveals that, by the time he reaches the end of the book, Solomon has made up his mind on this question. He writes, "Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it." His conclusion is that, yes, there is a possibility of life after death for humanity. A person's spirit returns to God for safekeeping, yet that is as far as his understanding can take him. He does not know what happens next. However, he is wise enough to know that his conclusion leads to a truth: Since we do have a chance to live again, depending on God's judgment of our works, we had better fear God and keep His commandments (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14).

Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Death Is Not the End (Part Four)

Matthew 16:21-23

Matthew 16:21 encapsulates how Jesus approached His own death. Here He apprises His disciples of the coming events of the next year or so. Looking at this as objectively as possible, it seems a good deal like a checklist! Matthew's manner of recording Jesus' declaration is rather unemotional and straightforward, yet he is penning the fateful itinerary of the Lamb of God, the Savior of the world! Jesus Himself suffered intense emotional pain the evening before He was arrested, anticipating the torture and the crucifixion that awaited Him, as well as the terrifying absence of the Father from His life. However, at this point in His ministry, His attitude is more dispassionate.

The next verses highlight a striking contrast between Jesus' approach and Peters': "Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, 'Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!'" (Matthew 16:22). Upon hearing what Jesus revealed about His impending death, Peter became angry, and his language took on a rough, aggressive tone against His Master and Teacher. Like most men, he encountered death with fear and hostility, gearing up to fight it with all his being.

However, notice Christ's response to Peter's rebuke: "But He turned and said to Peter, 'Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men'" (Matthew 16:23). He considered His own death was a work of God, and to regard it with the fear and hostility that Peter did was offensive to Him! It was a major event in God's plan; He had to be treated monstrously and die agonizingly to pay for the sins of humanity. Beyond that, He had to be raised from death to immortality to ensure eternal life for all whom God would call.

It was all part of the plan; it was God's will. Thus, there was no need to approach it with great fear, the source of which He pinpointed in Satan the Devil. That evil spirit was heightening Peter's natural fear of death in an attempt to dissuade Jesus from fulfilling His Father's will. As Jesus says, at the moment Peter had jettisoned all thought about what God was doing in order to obsess on a human misunderstanding of death. Jesus, though, approached the matter with great calm and purpose. He would live out His life and die such a death to fulfill the will of God.

A person might say, "Well, that was Jesus! He knew His death was necessary to God's plan from early on! That doesn't apply to the average person." Perhaps, but only in terms of degree. For a converted member of God's Family must follow the same path as "the captain of their salvation" (Hebrews 2:10; "captain" from Greek archegos suggests a leader who forges ahead so that others can follow). Peter writes, "For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps" (I Peter 2:21). Just as Jesus lived a life of sacrifice, suffered death, and was raised to eternal life through resurrection, so must we go through the same process to reach the same goal (see I Corinthians 15:20-23; Philippians 3:8-11). In this way, our deaths and resurrections to eternal life are also part of the plan of God.

Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Death Is Not the End (Part Two)

John 11:1-5

Obviously, quite a close bond existed between Lazarus and Jesus. Luke 10:38-42 shows that Jesus had spent time with the family, eating, talking, and perhaps even staying with them occasionally during His travels around Judea. Twice in these five verses, it is mentioned that Jesus loved Lazarus, and this fact is connected with His approach to this man's death. For, when He heard that Lazarus was sick, even knowing it was a fatal illness, He remained where He was for two more days (John 11:6)! John describes Jesus' attitude toward death as calm and confident, an assessment again depicted in verses 11-13.

What He says to His disciples in John 11:14-15 takes it still further: "Then Jesus said to them plainly, 'Lazarus is dead. And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, that you may believe. Nevertheless let us go to him.'" He was glad that Lazarus had succumbed to this illness! It was not a macabre pleasure but a positive outlook, a kind of righteous joy, since He knew that the resurrection He would perform would bring about a great deal of good: Lazarus would live, the disciples' faith would be bolstered, a great witness would be made, and the path to Calvary would be set firmly in motion.

Jesus surely took a different approach to death than we do!

Later, John records that "Jesus wept" (verse 35), and many people blithely assume that He was grieving for Lazarus, but they are mistaken. He had no need to weep for Lazarus because He knew the miracle He would soon perform. Verse 33 says, "He groaned in the spirit and was troubled" when He saw Mary and the Jews with her weeping. A word study of "groaned in the spirit" shows that He was upset, even angry or indignant, rather than grief-stricken, and His emotion came out in tears. The context shows that He wept for their unbelief and their lack of hope. Even Mary, who had hung on His every word, did not understand His power or the true hope of the resurrection. Jesus is Master over death (Hebrews 2:14), and still they disbelieved!

In summary, Jesus views death through the lens of hope and the good that lies beyond it.

Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Death Is Not the End (Part Two)

Acts 20:7-10

Acts 20 contains the story of young Eutychus falling from the window during one of the apostle's long sermons. Luke mentions the lamps probably because they contributed to the subsequent event. A large number of lamps had likely been lighted so that all the brethren could see Paul and perhaps take notes on his teaching. However, lamps not only emit a great deal of light, but they also put off a lot of heat, so Luke almost certainly intends the reader to understand that the audience was becoming a little drowsy due to both the warmth and the late hour.

Luke's verbiage is matter-of-fact and unemotional. The apostle remains calm and collected throughout the incident. He does not race down the stairs, fly into hysterics, or wail about how tragically this young man's life ended. Even the English expression of his "falling on" Eutychus is a bit overdone since the Greek word, epipipto, has the sense here of pressing or lying upon. In other words, the apostle stretches himself out on Eutychus as Elisha did with the Shunammite's son (II Kings 4:34-35), then he coolly tells everyone not to worry, for the young man would live. Before long, the brethren are eating a meal together (verse 11)!

Paul does not react to Eutychus' death with the proverbial weeping and gnashing of teeth. By his placid demeanor, he reassures the brethren and proceeds to exhibit God's power and mercy. Remaining so composed in such a situation may seem almost inhuman to be able to do. We humans are usually so full of emotion for our loved ones that we become absolutely distraught when a death occurs, but these examples from Scripture show that, while grief is normal, a hopeful, positive expectation of life to come is a more spiritually mature attitude toward death.

The faith of Jesus and Paul allowed them to consider death almost from a detached point of view. Certainly, they felt the same emotions as we do, but they suppressed them to a large degree, not because they were callous, but because their hope in what God offers beyond death far exceeded them. To them, death was not the end but a necessary step toward a better life. Jesus Christ, "who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God" (Hebrews 12:2). And for his part, Paul writes in Romans 8:18, "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us."

How could they do this? They knew what death really is, and along with their deep faith in God's plan, power, and promises, they could face it with unwavering hope.

Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Death Is Not the End (Part Three)

1 Corinthians 15:1-8

As he opens this chapter, Paul's clear purpose is to show that the hope God has placed before us is not based on men's guesses or possibilities, but on the testimony of many eyewitnesses then yet living when he wrote this in the AD 50s. Paul adds that he did not make up the gospel, but it was what he received from Christ, and what he received was exactly the same as what he had later been told by the apostles when he met with them in Jerusalem. Paul is presenting the resurrection of Christ as a historical fact.

We also have available to us the witness of the apostles' lives following the resurrection. Now, people just do not do the things the apostles did without believing what they saw with their own eyes with all their heart. Thus, in the first eight verses Paul reinforces what Peter says in II Peter 1:16-21, that there is plenty of strong evidence of the proof of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is not a figment of these men's imaginations. It really did occur, and God did not provide a mere two or three witnesses, but hundreds of them to the fact of the resurrection of the dead.

Paul establishes that our hope is resurrection into the Kingdom of God. However, we must take this hope one step farther if we want to make it a motivating force. The resurrection is, in one sense, merely a promised event given at a point in time. It does not occur merely because we believe it, or even because it has been promised. It occurs because of Who promised it. It occurs because there is a powerful Being of utmost integrity, who cannot lie and who will make it occur. This is where our hope must be, not in what He has promised, but rather Who has promised it. Is our faith in God? So must our hope be in God.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Perseverance and Hope

Ephesians 4:4

Paul clearly links our hope with our calling, which is God's summons into His presence so that we may have a relationship with Him. In the context of the first paragraph of Ephesians 4, the implication is that this hope is a factor that unites us into one body. Our calling is an end to pessimism, negativity, and despair and the beginning of a confident, bright, and optimistic life filled with endless possibilities because this unique hope gives positive expectancy to life here and now and beyond the grave as well.

John W. Ritenbaugh
The Elements of Motivation (Part Three): Hope

2 Timothy 1:8-9

II Timothy 1:8-9 and Titus 3:5 together reveal that our hope for salvation and completion as a son of God in Christ's image, prepared for the resurrection to eternal life, all comes down to one thing - God. Was it not God who saved Israel from their slavery? Was it not God who provided for them the whole way through the wilderness, then gave them their inheritance regardless of any promise? Would they have had any hope without Him in the picture, first giving the promise and then fulfilling what He said He would do?

Could they have delivered themselves? Could they have provided for themselves? Could they have taken over the Promised Land? Their hope had to be in God, that He would follow through. The promise did not save them. It was the God who made the promise.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Perseverance and Hope

Hebrews 6:18-19

Here hope is seen as being external. Even though we carry the thought, the understanding, the knowledge of it in our own minds, and it appears to be internal, it is actually external to those who have it. Our hope is something that we flee to for refuge, and this hope has entered behind the veil for us.

This kind of hope, which is used more frequently in the Bible than internal hope, is seen as what stirs us and produces the hope within. This kind of hope is what the Christian's hope—the object, the concept, the idea, the fact—is in. For instance, our hope can be in God or in Jesus or in salvation, as Scripture may say. It can be in God's promises, His Word, eternal life, His steadfast love, His grace, the resurrection from the dead, and sharing the glory of God. Our internal hope is motivated by these aspects of the external hope.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Trumpets Is a Day of Hope

Revelation 20:10

This verse ostensibly describes the Lake of Fire as a place where God torments people forever. This assumption raises three questions:

1. If the Beast and False Prophet are mortal men, why are they still alive after the Millennium when Satan is cast into the Lake of Fire?

2. If they are mortals, how can they “be tormented day and night forever and ever” in an inferno that would soon consume them?

3. What kind of God would devise such a “cruel and unusual” punishment?

Before answering these questions, we must briefly consider whether human beings have an immortal soul. For several biblical reasons, our understanding of the Scriptures compels us to maintain that they do not:

1. Job recognizes that man has a spirit (Job 32:8), which the apostle Paul shows in I Corinthians 2:11 endows humanity with intellect. This spirit in man comes from God (Zechariah 12:1) and returns to Him upon death (Ecclesiastes 12:7; Acts 7:59). It records an individual's life, character, and personality, which God stores until the resurrection of the dead. However, the Bible never describes this spirit as immortal or eternal; in fact, I Corinthians 2:6-16 explains that man needs yet another Spirit, God's, to be complete and to discern godly things. According to Ecclesiastes 3:21, animals also have a spirit, “which goes down to the earth,” suggesting that it ceases to exist at the animal's death.

2. The Bible flatly asserts that all people die: “[I]t is appointed for men to die once” (Hebrews 9:27). Ezekiel says distinctly that souls die: “The soul who sins shall die” (Ezekiel 18:4, 20; see Romans 6:23). Jesus warns in Matthew 10:28 that God can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna, a type of the Lake of Fire.

3. In death, life and consciousness are gone. “The dead know nothing,” says Solomon in Ecclesiastes 9:5, and he later adds, “[T]here is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going” (verse 10). In Psalm 146:4, the psalmist writes about men's death, “His spirit departs, he returns to his earth; in that very day his plans perish” (see Genesis 3:19).

4. Scripture also confutes the idea that people go to heaven or hell after death. Peter says to the crowd on the day of Pentecost, “Men and brethren, let me speak freely to you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. . . . For David did not ascend into the heavens” (Acts 2:29, 34). Our Savior confirms this in John 3:13: “No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven.” The biblical usage of Sheol and Hades simply means “the pit” or “the grave.”

5. Men cannot have immortality unless God gives it to them. Paul writes, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23; emphasis ours throughout). In I Corinthians 15:53 he tells the saints, “This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality”; that is, immortality is not inherent in us. At the first resurrection, God will give “eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality” (Romans 2:7). If we already had immortality, why should we seek it?

6. Only God has immortality. He is, Paul writes to Timothy, “the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality” (I Timothy 6:15-16). John says of the Word, “In Him was life” (John 1:4), meaning as Creator of all things (verse 3), He had life inherent. Jesus affirms this in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” In other words, humans must go through Him to receive eternal life.

With such overwhelming proof, the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, believed by so many, proves false. Man is not immortal, nor does he possess any “spark of God” unless God has given it to him through the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:11). A Christian's hope of life after death rests in the resurrection of the dead (I Corinthians 15:12-23). Conversely, the wicked only await eternal death as recompense for their evil lives.

Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Eternal Torment?


 

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