HOPE BEYOND THE GRAVE
Kevin D. Paulson
It was All Souls Day, November 2, 1888.
An unusually sun-swept autumn, mild and beautiful, possessed the medieval dreamland known as Hapsburg Vienna. One publication in the city would later observe, regarding this fool's paradise:
"Outside, everything is gleam and gorgeousness. One lives only on the outside, one is led astray by the dancing phosphorescence . . . one no longer expects anything from the inner life, from thinking or believing."
The Tagblatt, quoted by Frederic Morton, A Nervous Splendor: Vienna 1888-1889 (Boston: Little, Brown & Co, 1979), p. 315.
Was this really a description of Hapsburg Vienna? Or of our world today?
One who recognized the reality beneath the glitter more than most was the Crown Prince himself, His Imperial Highness Rudolf von Hapsburg, heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Restless and tormented, idealistic and self-indulgent all at once, this ruler-in-waiting had begun to question more and more what life was all about, and why anything mattered.
On this All Souls Day, Prince Rudolf chanced to meet a Countess in one of the halls of the Imperial Palace, on her way to the cemetery to pray for her dead loved ones.
Rudolf asked, "Off to the cemetery, Countess?"
"Yes, Your Imperial HIghness. To pray for my dead.
"When I'm gone, will you pray for me?
"Your Imperial Highness?
"Will you include me among your dead?
"Your Imperial Highness is smiling. It is a joke.
"A smile doesn't always mean a joke."
"Your Imperial Highness, I am much older than you. I pray God, I shall never have a chance to--to do what you ask."
"But if I should be gone, will you pray for me on All Souls Day?"
"I hope never to see such an All Souls Day--"
"If you do, will you pray for me?"
"Yes--yes of course, Your Imperial Highness."
"Thank you."
The Countess was destined to long remember this conversation.
A scant three months later, Prince Rudolf and his mistress, a commoner by the name of Mary Vetsera, took their own lives in a strange, still-mysterious suicide pact, at the imperial hunting lodge in the village of Mayerling.
It was a tragedy with long-range consequences for the Austro-Hungarian Empire, for Europe, and for the world.
In times of adversity, uncertainty, and great loss, there is always an interest in death, the afterlife, and supernatural topics.
In a survey reported by Time magazine, March 24, 1997:
"Do you believe in the existence of heaven, where people live forever with God after they die?
Yes 81%
No 13%
"Do you think of heaven as something that is 'up there'?
Yes 67%
No 29%
"Immediately after death, which of the following do you think will happen to you?
"Go directly to heaven 61%
"Go to purgatory 15%
"Go to hell 1%
"Be reincarnated 5%
"End of existence 4%"
Time, March 24, 1997, p. 73
None of these, interestingly enough, gave the answer we're going to talk about tonight.
1. First of all, we need to ask, How did we get here in the first place?
Gen. 2:7:
"And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul."
Eccl. 12:7:
"Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it."
James 2:26:
"The body without the spirit is dead."
Job 27:3:
"The spirit of God is in my nostrils."
II Thess. 2:8:
"And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming."
Spirit = breath
The Greek word for "spirit" is pneuma, from which we get our English word pneumonia.
Nowhere in the Bible does it say the human spirit has any feeling, wisdom, or life after a person dies.
2. Do souls die?
Eze. 18:20:
"The soul that sinneth, it shall die."
Rev. 16:3:
"Every living soul died in the sea."
According to the Bible, body + breath = a soul. Take away one or the other, and you have no soul.
The Bible does not teach that human beings have souls. It teaches that human beings are souls.
3. So what happens to people when they die?
(Refer to "Larry King Live" the evening of Sept. 29, 2001, in which it was asked where the destroyers of the World Trade Center, and their victims, ended up.)
First of all, the Bible is clear that only one Being in the universe possesses immortality:
I Tim. 6:15-16:
“Which in His times He shall show, who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords;
“Who only hath immortality.”
Eccl. 9:5-6,10:
"For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.
“Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun. . . .
“There is no word, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave whither thou goest."
Psalm 146:4:
"His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish."
Psalm 6:5:
“For in death there is no remembrance of Thee; in the grave who shall give Thee thanks?”
Psalm 115:17:
"The dead praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence."
Acts 2:29,34:
"David . . . is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day. . . . For David is not ascended into the heavens."
Job 14:10-12:
"But man dieth, and wasteth away; yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he?
“As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up:
“So man lieth down, and riseth not: till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep."
A couple of points are clear in this passage.
First, death is called what? A sleep. An unconscious state. What did Jesus say about His friend Lazarus?
John 11:11-14:
"Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep.
“Then said His disciples, Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well.
“Howbeit Jesus spake of his death: but they thought that He had spoken of taking rest in sleep.
“Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead."
The second point we read in Job 14 is when the dead will be raised from sleep.
When the heavens are no more.
4. Receiving their reward
Job 14:12:
"Till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep."
Dan. 12:1-2:
"And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.
"And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt."
John 5:28-29:
"Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the grave shall hear His voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation."
I Cor. 15:51-53:
"Behold, I show you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
“In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
“For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality."
No reincarnation. No near-death experiences (as if God made a mistake and you almost got to heaven, only to be yanked back at the last minute). No communication possible with those who have departed.
The dead are in their graves, awaiting the call and final judgment of the Lifegiver.
The doctrine of the immortality of the soul is obviously not in the Bible. Where then did it come from?
"If there is a Jewish hope in an afterlife, it has nothing to do with the 'immortality of the soul,' a Greek idea foreign to the Biblical tradition."
James Carroll, Constantine's Sword: The Church and the Jews, A History (New York: Houghton Mifflin Co, 2001), p. 118.
Of course the Greeks were not unique in holding to this view. In ancient Egypt and throughout classical culture, the notion of an immortal soul was dominant. So without question this is a pagan concept, not found in Holy Scripture.
- The Blessed Hope
I Thess. 4:13-18:
"For I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.
"For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him.
"For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent [precede] them which are asleep.
"For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first.
"Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
"Wherefore comfort one another with these words."
Rev. 21:4:
"And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes: and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away."