Doctrine of the Last Things (Part 17): State of the Soul after Death

State of the Soul after Death

Hello! I’m glad that you could join us in Defenders today.

In our discussion of the doctrine of the last things, we have been talking about the Second Coming of Christ, but of course up until this time in human history no Christian has lived until the time of the parousia, or Christ’s Second Coming. Rather, every Christian up to this point has been ushered into the afterlife, not by Christ’s return, but by death. So we want to ask ourselves now, “What happens to people when they die – people who do not live until the return of Christ?” Let’s talk first about the biblical view of what happens when a person dies.

Here it is important to understand the notion of progressive revelation. Progressive revelation means that God has not given to humankind all of his truth that he wants us to know at once, but has revealed it gradually over time in increasing detail and fullness.

Examples of progressive revelation in Scripture would be, first, the doctrine of the Trinity. When you read the Old Testament, you would never guess that God is three-in-one. There seems to be a single person who is God in the Old Testament. There is monotheism, and there doesn’t seem to be a plurality of persons in the godhead. But with the revelation in Jesus and the development of the New Testament, God’s nature is more fully disclosed and we’ve come to learn that God is, in fact, three-in-one: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

A second example would be the plan of salvation. In the Old Testament, salvation seems to belong only to the Jews. Yet, in the New Testament, Paul speaks of the mystery hidden for ages in God, and that mystery is to reconcile both Jews and Gentiles together in Christ. He said this mystery hidden for ages in God is now fully disclosed through the teaching of the apostles to the church (Colossians 1:25-28).

So these are examples of how progressive revelation works. God gradually unfolds his truth over the course of history. The Christian doctrine of immortality takes this form. It is something that is progressively revealed over time.

Let’s begin by talking about the concept of immortality as it appears in the Old Testament. In much of the Old Testament you do not find an optimistic, hopeful perspective on what happens to people when they die. Rather, the destiny of the departed (whether righteous or unrighteous) is a place referred to in the Hebrew Scriptures as Sheol. What is Sheol? Sheol is the underworld abode of the departed spirits of the dead. There isn’t any discrimination between good and evil in the concept of Sheol. Sheol is just the nether realm of the departed spirits. We are not told whether it is divided into a blessed paradisiacal place or a horrible tortuous place. Let’s look at some of the Scriptures that refer to this notion of Sheol.

First, Isaiah 38:9-10, 18:

A writing of Hezekiah king of Judah, after he had been sick and had recovered from his sickness:

I said, In the noontide of my days
    I must depart;
I am consigned to the gates of Sheol
    for the rest of my years.
. . .
For Sheol cannot thank thee,
    death cannot praise thee;
those who go down to the pit cannot hope
    for thy faithfulness.

This is a rather gloomy picture of the afterlife, isn’t it? You go down to the pit, down to Sheol, where there is no praise or thanks being offered to God.

We also find this referred to in the book of Job. In Job 7:9-10 we read: “As the cloud fades and vanishes, so he who goes down to Sheol does not come up; he returns no more to his house, nor does his place know him any more.” Certainly, we don’t see any doctrine of the resurrection from Sheol – do we? – in a passage like this. Rather, it seems that Sheol is the hopeless place where one goes and from which one does not return.

Also, Isaiah 14:9-11:

Sheol beneath is stirred up
    to meet you when you come,
it rouses the shades to greet you,
    all who were leaders of the earth;
it raises from their thrones
    all who were kings of the nations.
All of them will speak
    and say to you:
“You too have become as weak as we!
    You have become like us!”
Your pomp is brought down to Sheol,
    the sound of your harps;
maggots are the bed beneath you,
    and worms are your covering.

Again, this is a very gloomy picture of the afterlife. Notice that here it speaks of shades – a sort of ghostly spirit that is just a pale vestige of the robust human being that once lived. For that reason I don’t think we can agree with those who say that Sheol simply means the grave or death. Rather, as I say, it seems to be a nether realm of departed spirits – wraiths – who are the vestiges of the people who once lived. They are here described as greeting the King of Babylon when he will go down to Sheol at his death.

Nevertheless, there are some passages in the Old Testament that provide glimmers of hope. For example, look at Psalm 73:23-28:

Nevertheless I am continually with thee;
    thou dost hold my right hand.
Thou dost guide me with thy counsel,
    and afterward thou wilt receive me to glory.
Whom have I in heaven but thee?
    And there is nothing upon earth that I desire besides thee.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
    but God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever.

For lo, those who are far from thee shall perish;
    thou dost put an end to those who are false to thee.
But for me it is good to be near God;
    I have made the Lord God my refuge,
    that I may tell of all thy works.

Here the psalmist seems to be quite hopeful. He says God will guide him in life, and then afterward God will receive him to glory. He said, “God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” So there are at least some glimmers of hope here for something beyond mere Sheol.

In a couple of places in the Old Testament, late in the development of the Old Testament in Isaiah and in Daniel, you do have the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead explicitly affirmed. Look for example at Isaiah 26:19:

Thy dead shall live, their bodies shall rise.
    O dwellers in the dust, awake and sing for joy!
For thy dew is a dew of light,
    and on the land of the shades thou wilt let it fall.

This is an explicit teaching of the resurrection of the body, which therefore calls for singing and rejoicing. I think it is especially interesting that he says God’s dew of light will fall on the land of the shades – those departed spirits in Sheol. There is hope of resurrection from the dead.

Then in Daniel 12:2 we have another explicit affirmation of the hope of the resurrection. Daniel 12:2 says, “And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.” Here is taught a resurrection of both the righteous and unrighteous dead alike.

Thus the Old Testament picture is mixed. The older view seems to have been one that speaks of a realm of the departed dead. But then in time there begins to enter in a more hopeful sort of prospect, and finally actual affirmations of the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead.

During the intertestamental period, this belief in the resurrection of the dead flourished in Judaism and became a very widespread belief. In Jesus’ day it was held to by the party of the Pharisees, but it was denied by the sect known as the Sadducees. The Sadducees in Jesus’ day represented the sort of old conservative Jews. They didn’t accept the doctrine of the bodily resurrection of the dead. Nor did they believe there were any rewards and punishments after life. They held to the older, more primitive, view that you have in these passages we read about Sheol. So the Sadducees rejected the notion of immortality and resurrection of the dead in the sense that we’ve been describing it. By contrast, the sect of the Pharisees affirmed both the immortality of the soul beyond the death of the body as well as the eventual resurrection of the body and retribution in the future life. There would be rewards and punishments.

Next time, we’ll look more closely at Jesus’ argument with the Sadduccess and see which side of the debate he comes down on. Until then I wish you godspeed.^[1]