Death Not a Cessation of Conscious Existence

Death is not extinction or suspension of per­sonal existence, nor even of conscious existence.

Such sallies as "The dead are dead" or, "How can the dead be alive?" are mere subterfuges which fail utterly to define the various phases of death as set forth in the Word of God.

The fact is that death has various forms and. that those who are dead in one sense may be quite alive in another.

God warned Adam: "In the day that thou eatest thereof, dying thou shalt die" (Gen. 2:17). And in that day he was "separated from the life of God," yet in connection with this very fact God said: "In sorrow shalt thou eat of it [the fruit of the ground] all the days of thy life" (Gen. 3:17).

We ourselves were "dead in trespasses and sins," yet "walked according to the course of this world" (Eph. 2:1, 2). The Apostle Paul refers to the merry widow as being "dead while she liveth" (I Tim. 5:6). Abraham, the rich man and Lazarus are all represented as fully conscious between death and resurrection and in the record of their interchange Abraham is said to have stated that for Lazarus to go to the rich man's brothers he would have to rise from the dead (Luke 16 :19-31).

If death at the close of this earthly life is a ces­sation of conscious or other existence, what did our Lord mean when He said to the dying thief: "Today shalt thou be with Me in Paradise" (Luke 23:43) and how could He then have preached to "the spirits in prison"? (I Pet. 3: 18, 19). And how could He have said:

". . . I lay down My life, THAT I MIGHT TAKE IT AGAIN. . . I HAVE POWER TO TAKE IT AGAIN. . ." (John 10:17, 18).

How could He take back His life again if laying it down meant cessation of personal or conscious existence? And how could He then have said to His enemies: "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up"? (John 2:19). "But He speak of the temple of His Body" (Ver.21) and the very phrase­ology indicates that His body was but the abode in which He dwelt.

Indeed, if death is extinction of personal exist­ence it is vain to talk about resurrection, for then the same person who died could not be raised again and what is called resurrection would actually be the creation of another individual.

This heresy strikes at the very doctrine of sal­vation, for if death is a cessation of conscious or other existence, how could anyone receive "everlast­ing life" on earth? And what about those who have "passed from death unto life"? (John 5:24). Will they have to pass back from life into death again at the close of their earthly career? Surely the theory that all life and conscious existence ceases or is sus­pended at physical death is a denial of the present possession of everlasting life.

The possession of a body is not essential to con­sciousness. "God is Spirit" (John 4:24) and was Spirit, without a corporeal body, before the incarna­tion. Was He not conscious? Our Lord was put to _ death in the flesh and for three days His body lay in Joseph's tomb. Was He not conscious during that time? The angels are spirits (Heb. 1:14). Are they not conscious? And surely our Lord would not have "preached unto the spirits in prison" if they were not conscious.

The Apostle Paul surely did not believe that the elimination of the physical brings unconsciousness, for he clearly states that while. he did not know whether he was "in the body or out of the body" when "caught up to the third heaven," he was an intelligent witness of the unutterable things seen and heard there (II Cor. 12 :1-7).