All of the foregoing theories, be it noticed, are based upon the assumption that death does not mean death — that to die is to become more alive than before death. In Eden it was God who declared to our first parents, “Thou shalt surely die” (Gen. 2:17). It was Satan who declared, “Ye shall not surely die (Gen 3:4). Notice that the heathen, as well as the Christians, have accepted Satan’s lie and correspondingly rejected God’s truth. Do they not all agree with the serpent’s statement, “Ye shall not surely die”? Do they not all claim that the dead are alive — much more alive than before they died? This, dear friends, has been our common point of mistake. We have followed the wrong teacher, the one of whom our Lord said, “He abode not in the Truth,” and that he is the father of lies. — John 8:44.

These false doctrines have prevailed amongst the heathen for many, many centuries, but they gained an ascendancy in the church of Christ during the “dark ages” and had much to do with producing the darkness thereof. If our forefathers had believed God’s testimony, “Thou shalt surely die” (Gen. 2:17), there would have been no room for the introduction of prayers for the dead, masses for their sins, frightful thoughts respecting their torture. The scriptures agree from first to last that “the dead know not anything” (Ecc. 9:5) and that “His sons come to honour, and he knoweth it not; and they are brought low, but he perceiveth it not of them” (Job 14:21). It is the scriptures that tell us where the dead are and their condition; that they are experiencing neither joy nor sorrow, pleasure nor suffering; that they will have no knowledge of anything done under the sun until their awakening in the resurrection. Remember the wise man’s words, “Do with thy might what thy hand findeth to do, for there is neither wisdom nor knowledge nor device in (sheol) the grave, whither thou goest.” (Ecc. 9:10)

Both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament it is written of both the good and the bad that they fell asleep in death. The apostle speaks of those who “sleep in Jesus,” (1 Thes. 4:14) and of those who have “fallen asleep in Christ” (1 Cor. 15:18) who, he declares, are perished, if there be no resurrection of the dead. Could they perish in heaven or in purgatory or in a hell of torment? Assuredly no one so teaches. They are already in a perished condition in the tomb; and the perishing would be absolute, complete, unless a resurrection be provided for their deliverance from the power of death. Hence we read, “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

In a word, then, the Bible teaching is that man was made superior to all the brute creation — in the image and likeness of his Creator; that he possessed life in a perfect degree in Eden and might have retained it by full obedience. But in his trial, his testing, he failed and came under the death sentence. “In the day that thou eatest thereof, dying thou shalt die.” (Gen. 2:17) There the dying began, which, after nine hundred and thirty years, brought father Adam to the tomb and involved all of his children in his weaknesses and death sentence. He died in the very day, which the Apostle Peter explains was not a twenty-four hour day but a thousand-year day, saying, “One day is with the Lord as a thousand years.” (2 Peter 3:8) During six of these great days the death sentence has brought man down in some respects to the level of the brute and left him without hope of future life, except as God might take compassion upon him and bring him some relief. This was hinted at in the statement that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent’s head. It was yet further elaborated to Abraham saying, “In thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” — Gen. 28:14.