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S. Van Mierlo

Summary of the Divine
Plan

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The Message of the Kingdom

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Three Spheres

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Alphabetical Analysis

Also -

HOPE

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THE ABOVE HEAVENS

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"Practical Truth in
Ephesians"

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A Study in Pentecost

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Heavenly Places

by Charles H. Welch
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The One Great
Subject of

The
Word

RIGHT DIVISION

By Charles H.
Welch

RIGHT DIVISION

by E.W.
Bullinger

RIGHT DIVISION

by Tom Ballinger

Present Truth

The Foundations of Dispensational Truth

Introduction To Acts 28

Dispensational Expositions

ACTS
28. The Dispensational Boundary

None Other Things

The One NEW MAN

Tested
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Things That Differ

Before and After Acts 28:28

Who is
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LO-AMMI

A
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The Elect Remnant

Time and
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Death,
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Do YOU have an Immortal
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Satan

The Gift, Hope
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The Fullness

Three
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Children
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Earthly Things

EONS AND
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Predestination

"Written"

Dispensational Outline Of The Books Of The N.T.

75 DIFFICULT
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Gementria in Christ's
Geneaolgy

A REFRESHING STUDY

ON THE RESURRECTION

by E. W. Bullinger

Scripture shuts us up to the blessed hope of
being reunited in resurrection. That is why the death of believers is so
often called "sleep"; and dying is called "falling asleep"; because of
the assured hope of awakening in resurrection. It's language is, "David
fell on sleep" (Acts 13:36), not David's body, or David's soul. "Stephen
... fell asleep" (Acts 7:60). "Lazarus sleepeth" (John 11:11), which is
explained, when the Lord afterward speaks "plainly", as meaning "Lazarus
is dead" (v. 14).

Now, when the Holy
Spirit uses one thing to describe or explain another, He does not choose
the opposite word or expression. If He speaks of night, He does not use
the word light. If He speaks of daylight, He does not use the word
night. He does not put "sweet for bitter, and bitter for sweet" (Isa.
5:20). He uses adultery to illustrate Idolatry; He does not use virtue.
And so, if He uses the word "sleep" of death, it is because sleep
illustrates to us what the condition of death is like. If Tradition be
the truth, He ought to have used the word awake, or wakefulness. But the
Lord first uses a Figure, and says "Lazarus sleepeth"; and afterwards,
when He speaks "plainly" He says "Lazarus is dead". Why? Because sleep
expresses and describes the condition of the "unclothed" state. In
normal sleep, there is no consciousness. For the Lord, therefore, to
have used this word "sleep" to represent the very opposite condition of
conscious wakefulness, would have been indeed to mislead us. But all His
words are perfect; and are used for the purpose of teaching us, and not
for leading us astray.

So effectually
has Satan's lie, "thou shalt not surely die", succeeded and accomplished
its purpose that, though the Lord Jesus said "I will come again and
receive you unto Myself", Christendom says, with one voice, "No! Lord.
Thou needest not come for me: I will die and come to Thee". Thus the
blessed hope of resurrection and the coming of the Lord have been well
nigh blotted out from the belief of the Churches; and the promise of the
Lord been made of none effect by the ravages of
Tradition.

In Phil. 2:27, we read that
Epaphraditus "was sick nigh unto death; but God had mercy on him"..So
that it was mercy to preserve Epaphraditus from death. This could hardly
be called "mercy" if death were the "gate of glory", according to
popular tradition.

In 2 Cor. 1:10-11, it
was deliverance of no ordinary kind when Paul himself was "delivered
from so great a death" which called for corresponding greatness of
thanksgiving for God's answer to their prayers on his behalf. Moreover,
he trusted that God would still deliver him. It is clear from 2 Cor. 5:4
that Paul did not wish for death; for he distinctly says "not for that
he would be unclothed, but clothed upon (i.e. in resurrection and
"change") that mortality might be swallowed up of LIFE"; not of death.
This is what he was so "earnestly desiring"
(v.2)

Hezekiah also had reason to praise
God for delivering him from "the king of terrors". It was "mercy" shown
to Epaphraditus; it was "a gift" to Paul; it was "love" to Hezekiah. He
says (Isa. 38:17- 19): "For the grave (Heb. sheol) cannot praise thee,
death cannot celebrate thee: They that go down into the pit cannot hope
for thy truth. The living, the living, he shall praise Thee, as I do
this day."

On the other hand the death
of Moses was permitted, for it was his punishment; therefore, there was
no deliverance for him though he sought it (Deut. 1:37; 3:23,27;
4:21,22; 31:2). Surely it could have been no punishment if death is not
death; but, as is universally held, the gate of
paradise!

In 1 Thes. 4:15, we read:
"This we say unto you by the Word of the Lord, that we which are alive
and remain shall not precede them which are
asleep."

To agree with Tradition this
ought to have been written, "shall not precede them which are already
with the Lord". But this would have made nonsense; and there is nothing
of that in the Word of God.

While we may
draw our own inferences from what the Scriptures state, we shall all
agree that it is highly important that we should clothe these views in
Scriptural terms, and that we should ask and answer how far it is that
these popular sayings have practically, at any rate until recent years,
blotted out the hope of resurrection, the hope of the Lord's coming
again to fulfill His promise, to receive us to Himself. You remember how
the apostle speaks to some in the 15th chapter of 1st Corinthians, who
say that there is "no resurrection of the dead"; and in writing to
Timothy he refers to Hymenaeus & Philetus, who had led some away
from the faith by saying that "the resurrection is past
already".

The greatest comfort which the
greatest Comforter that the world ever knew had to give to a sister who
had been bereaved of a beloved brother was, "Thy brother shall rise
again." All hope is bound up with this great subject: and, if our
Theology has no place in it for this great hope, then the sooner we
change it the better; for remember that this subject is one of
revelation.

We are expressly enjoined by
the Lord Himself: "Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming in the
which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice" (John 5:28).
These are the Lord's own words, and they tell us where His Voice will be
heard; and, that is not in heaven, not in Paradise, or in any so-called
"intermediate state", but in "the GRAVES". With this agrees Dan. 12:2,
which tells us that those who "awake" in resurrection will be those
"that sleep in the dust of the earth"; from which man was "taken" (Gen.
2:7; 3:23), and to which he must return (Gen. 3:19; Eccl.
12:7).

Psalm 146:4 declares of man, "His
breath goes forth, He returneth to his earth; In that very day his
thoughts perish." The passage says nothing about the "body". It is
whatever has done the thinking. the "body" does not think. The "body",
apart from the spirit, has no thoughts. Whatever has had the "thoughts"
has them no more; and this is "man".

There is Eccl. 9:5, which declares that "The living know that they shall
die; But the dead know not anything". It does not say dead bodies know
not anything, but "the dead", i.e. dead people, who are set in contrast
with the "living". As one of these "living", David says, by the Holy
Spirit (Psa. 146:2; 104:33):"While I live will I praise the Lord: I will
sing praises unto my God while I have any being". There would be no
praising the Lord after he had ceased to "have any being". Why? Because
"princes" and the "son of man" are helpless (Psa. 146:3,4). They return
to their earth; and when they die, their "thoughts perish": and they
"know not anything".

This is what God
says about death. He explains it to us Himself. We need not therefore
ask any man what it is. And if we did, his answer would be valueless,
inasmuch as it is absolutely impossible for him to know anything of
death, i.e. the death-state, beyond what God has told us in the
Scriptures.

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