DEATH AND BEYOND

Souls and spirits
in the Old Testament

For several centuries there were hardly any known individuals speaking in favour of the Bible view of conditional immortality, even though it had been the solid early Christian teaching. Later Sophronias, the patriarch of Jerusalem in the seventh century, with Bishop Nicholas of Greece in the twelfth century, and John Wycliffe of Lutterworth, England seem to have been lone voices, known by name and recorded as holding to the Apostolic teachings about death.

Over the years, however, there were groups that held to the teachings of Jesus, of which the Waldenses of the Piedmont Alps were the most prominent. They had to flee to the mountains to keep the pure teachings they held so firmly, but many lost their lives for their beliefs They too believed in conditional immortality - immortality as a gift for those who have been obedient to God and found worthy to receive the reward of everlasting life at the resurrection.

In India the St Thomas Christians believed that man sleeps in the interval between death and resurrection. The same beliefs were held in Ethiopia among the Christians there.

In the Papal Bull of 1513 Pope Leo X however, proclaimed the natural immortality of the soul, following a challenge by the philosopher, Petrus Pomponatus. The Papacy was now fully committed to this unbiblical teaching. It is interesting that Luther, the Reformer, held the position that we sleep in death until the awakening call on the resurrection morning by Christ the life giver. The Anabaptists of Poland and other places on the Continent, as well as England, were prepared to be burned at the stake for holding to the words of the Bible on this matter. Yet Calvin, another reformer, was deeply opposed to the teaching of the sleep of death and taught the view of the Greek philosophers. Thus began a split in the Protestant doctrine over this issue.

Then, in the early 1800’s, another player came onto the stage. Spiritualism developed, with a clear teaching that the dead are not really dead and sleeping, but are able to be contacted and communicated with. This greatly strengthened the cause of those who believe that we do not remain unconscious in death, but pass over and live somewhere else, playing a part in the affairs of today’s world. Spiritualism is totally opposed to Scripture, which teaches that the dead have no part in what happens in the world. Spiritualism is akin to the New Age movement and teaches a continuing form of evolution guided by those believed to be from ‘the other side‘. Of the dead, God says,

‘Neither have they any more a portion for ever in anything that is done under the sun.’ Ecclesiastes 9:6.