Immortality or Resurrection - William West (best pdf ebook reader for android TXT) 📗

the natural body, and no one will see God before they are raised from the dead. The dead do not know anything [Ecclesiastes 9:5] and will not know anything unto the resurrection. He is reading into this passage that Job is saying he has a part that cannot die, and reading in that it is not Job but only this immaterial no substance part of Job that will see God without the resurrection.
What was Job really saying? Job had much but lost everything and his friends and wife was telling him it was because he had sinned. The book is made up mostly of speeches by his threes friends accusing Job of sin and Job's response to them. Earlier in Job's third response he had said, "For there is hope for a tree, when it is cut down, that it will sprout again, and its shoots will not fail. Though its roots grow old in the ground, and its stump dies in the dry soul, at the scent of water it will flourish and put forth sprigs like a plant." For a tree that has been cut down Job sees hope that it will live again. "But man dies and lies prostate. Man expires, and where is he? As water evaporates from the sea, and a river becomes parched and dried up, so man lies down and does not rise. Until the heavens be no more, he will not awake nor be aroused out of his sleep." He sees hope of life for a tree cut down but for a person he sees no hope of life [Job 14:7-12]. In Job's time, what would be understood by "until the heavens be no more"? In the Old Testament the heavens were thought to be forever, their end was not known about. See Psalms 89:29, 148:6. In his hopelessness he could see hope for a tree cut down but for person after death he could see no hope "until the heavens be no more" which he thought would never be. This is one of the many expressions of hopelessness that are throughout his speeches. He sees a person as dead, asleep, not as being alive.
In his fifth speech in chapter 19, Job seems to be at his lowest level of hope but in his hopelessness he may see a ray of hope. "And as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last He will take His stand on the earth." Many see Christ as being the redeemer Job was speaking of, but there is no revelation given at this time from which he could know about Christ being the redeemer. God was seen as the redeemer and deliverer. See Psalms 19:14; 78:35; Proverbs 23:11; Jeremiah 50:34. Over and over they sinned and went into bondage and were delivered when they repented. Even in the time of Christ, the Jews thought their Christ would be a redeemer of their nation from Rome, not a redeemer from eternal death. "Even after my skin is destroyed, yet from my flesh I shall see God," the translators had difficulties with understanding what the Hebrew says in this passage, the King James says, "in my flesh," the Revised Standard says, "from my flesh," the American Standard says, "without my flesh," the Revised English Bible translates this passage, "But I know that vindicator lives and that he will rise last to speak in court: I shall discern my witness standing at my side and see my defending counsel, even God himself, whom I shall see with my own eyes, I myself and no other." Is the fulfillment of this after God his deliverer had delivered Job? [Job 42:5], "I know of you only by report, but now I see you with my own eyes, therefore I yield, repenting in dust and ashes" The Revised English Bible. His three friends and his wife accused Job of sin, but he knows he had not sinned, and God, his redeemer, lived and in the end he would be vindicate. In the end of the book of Job God his redeemer vindicated him.
It is difficult to read Job and the Old Testament and not read into it things that were not made known unto the New Testament or things that we have been taught by the theologies of today that are not in the Bible. The concept of Heaven is in the Old Testament but only as a place where God and angels are, not as a place where the just would ever be and where they would live forever. Job would never have said any person would be in Heaven. The resurrection and eternal life in Heaven was not made known unto the New Testament. See chapter seven, A strange and unexplainable silence, the silence of the Old Testament on punishment after death. All the rewards and punishments in the Old Testament were in this lifetime, not after death. The teaching of Christ cannot be read into the words of Job, Daniel, or anyone in the Old Testament.
[6]. "SHAME AND EVERLASTING CONTEMPT" Daniel 12:2
"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." Who has this "contempt"? "Then they shall go forth and look on the corpses of the men who have transgressed against Me for their (corpses) worm shall not die, and their (corpses) fire shall not be quenched: and they (corpses) shall be an abhorrence to all mankind" [Isaiah 66:24]. The antecedent of these three pronouns is “corpses.” Strong says both contempt and abhorrence are from the same Hebrew word. Strong's word # 1860, "To repulse, an object of aversion, abhorring, contempt." Contempt and abhorrence are the way others think about, “The corpses of the men who have transgressed against Me.” It does not say they will forever be conscious or in torment, is says nothing about torment, but that others will forever have shame and contempt for them. It is the contempt that is said to be everlasting, not the corpses of dead persons. Torment is read into this in an attempt to put Hell in it. How does "everlasting contempt" by "all mankind" become "everlasting torment" by God? Where is there anything about God forever tormenting those in "Hell" in this passage?
"And many of them that sleep" is not the same "All that are in the tombs shall hear his voice, and shall come forth" [John 5:28]. When this passage is kept in the context of Daniel 11 and 12, Daniel is not speaking of the resurrection at the coming of Christ, but seems to be speaking of a time of restoration of Israel when many would return to God just as Ezekiel pictured the dead bones as a resurrection of the dead [37:11-14] was speaking of a restoration of Israel when many did return to God. See Isaiah 52:1-2; 26:5.
"Ezekiel's prophecy referred to a spiritual resurrection of the Jews in Babylon and their return to Judea; for Jehovah added, 'Son of man these bones are the whole house of Israel'" Homer Hailey, A Commentary on Daniel, Page 243, 2001, Nevada Publications.
"The belief in the resurrection was nationalistic rather than individualistic" "Afterlife and Eschatology" at MyJewishLearning.com. Israel believed God would restore (resurrect) the nation when it sinned and turned back to God but not in the resurrection of the dead individuals.
Most, if not all of Daniel chapter 11 and 12 are about Israel coming out of the captivity and being restored as a nation. If Daniel 12:2 were speaking of the resurrection and judgment at the second coming of Christ, there could not be a bigger conflict with the orthodoxy teaching that all go to Heaven or Hell at the moment of death. How could those in Heaven be asleep "in the dust of the ground"? How could those in Heaven "awake"? How could an immortal soul that now has everlasting life and cannot die (which some tell us is the only part of a person that will live in Heaven or Hell), which soul cannot sleep the sleep of death, awake from the dust of the ground if that immortal soul was alive and awake in Heaven or Hell, not in the dust of the ground and not asleep? Orthodox teaches that long BEFORE the resurrection and judgment day the saved are in Heaven and have everlasting life. The Abraham's bosom version would also in conflict with it.
[7]. PLEASE EXPLAIN HOW A SOUL IN HELL
IS THE SPIRIT THAT RETURNED TO GOD? Ecclesiastes 12:7
Some of my brothers in Christ, who believe in "Abraham's bosom," and that no one will be in Heaven or Hell unto after the judgment, use this and other scriptures to prove the soul or spirit, the only part of a person they think will ever be in Heaven, goes to Heaven at death.
In there own words: "And I wondered why my dear brother did not see the verse just preceding it, which says, 'And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.' Where was Jesus? Stephen saw him alive at the right hand of God. Where could Jesus receive his spirit? He could receive his spirit only where he was. Where does the spirit go? Eccl. 12:7, 'Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who give it.' That immortal principle of the human family that never dies. So they killed the body of Stephen, but Stephen prayed for the Lord to receive his spirit where he was" L S White, Russell-White Debate, Page 51, 1912, F. L. Rowe Publisher.
When he answered his own question of where is Stephen now before the resurrection, he said Stephen is now in Heaven, therefore he is saying Stephen is not now in "Abraham's bosom" unto the resurrection. Sometimes Stephen is said to be in “Abraham’s bosom” and sometimes the same preachers say Stephen is now in Heaven. I think where they put Stephen depends on what they are trying to prove at that time. Ecclesiastes 12:7 says the bodies of all returned to the earth and the spirit [ruach] of all returned to God. Can my brothers not see that if the only part of a person he believe is immortal and is the only part of a person he believe will be saved or lost, if this is the part that goes back to God who gives it, He has all, both the saved and the unsaved, going back to God in Heaven at the time of death? What happened to his "Hell?" he is saying no one goes to Hell at death and no one goes to Abraham’s bosom at death for all, both the saved and the lost return to God. What happened to "Abraham's bosom," the second coming of Christ, the resurrection, the judgment, and the second death? If no one goes to Heaven at death, which is what those who believe in "Abraham's bosom" believe, how is it that this immortal part of a person, which will not go to Heaven unto after the judgment will go back to God at death? "Do not all go to one place?" [Ecclesiastes 6:6]. The whole chapter of Ecclesiastes 12 is speaking to all mankind, not just to the saved. ALL are admonished to remember God in their youth before the evil days of old age, then ALL shall return to dust and the spirit of ALL shall return to God. No reference is made to their being good or evil at the time of their death. If