Do The Saints Go To Heaven When They Die?
The Question Scripturally Considered
By Elder C. M. Keach
Do the Saints Go to Heaven When They Die?
What a question! Does anyone doubt the doctrine?
Yes: thousands doubt it; and their number is increasing every day. But have they any good reasons for doubting it?
Yes: many good reasons, a few of which are given below.
Paul makes the resurrection indispensable to a future life. Without it they who are “fallen asleep in Christ as perished” (1 Cor. 15:18). How perished if in heaven? He adds, “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable” (v. 19). Such argument is void it we can have a future life without a resurrection. Hear Paul again: “If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantage it me if the dead rise not?” (v. 32). The force of this argument is destroyed if saints go to heaven when they die. Certainly that would be advantage enough without any resurrection. The apostles gave great stress to the doctrine of a future resurrection; but multitudes in our day feel little or no interest in the doctrine; and some have lost sight of it altogether. No wonder! If the saints can live in glory without a resurrection what need is there of one?
If men go to heaven and hell at death, a future day of judgment would be a solemn farce. If men are consigned to their eternal destinies at death, then decision has been made, and is already being carried into execution. And this nullifies any future judgment. No tribunal ever institutes a second trial, unless there is some doubt as to the justness of the first. God will never begin to execute a doubtful decision. When God decides he decides right. Neither will he execute a decision before it is rendered. When will it be rendered? Ans. He “shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom” (2 Tim. 4:2). John the Revelator places “the time of the dead, that they should be judged,” under the sounding of the seventh trumpet (Rev. 11:15-18). The dead are raised before they are judged (Rev. 20:12).
Rev. 11:18 reads: “The nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou (God) should give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great;” and this is placed under the seventh trumpet by John (v. 15). What right have we to outrage God’s revealed plan by teaching that the saints get their reward “before the time” (1 Cor. 4:5). “Thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just” (Luke 14:14). “The Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father, with his angels, and then he shall reward every man according to his works” (Matt. 16:27).
“Behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be” (Rev. 22:12).
“Behold the righteous shall be recompensed in the earth” (Prov. 11:31). Read Ps. 37:9-11, 22, 27; Matt. 5:5; Rev. 5:10; 11:15.
“The dead know not anything” (Eccl. 9:5). “Their love and their hatred and their envy is now perished” (v. 6). “In that very day his thoughts perish” (Ps. 146:3, 4). “In death there is no remembrance of thee” (Ps. 6:5).
“David fell on sleep” (Acts 13:36). “Some are fallen asleep” (1 Cor. 15:6). “Fallen asleep in Christ” (1 Cor. 15:18). “The first fruits of them that slept” (1 Cor. 15:20). “Concerning them which are asleep” (1 Thess. 4:13). “Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; I go that I may awake him out of his sleep” (John 11:11). “Many that sleep in the dust” (Dan. 12:2). “And when he had said this he fell asleep” (Acts 7:60).
This sleep is broken by the resurrection. “I go that I may awake him out of his sleep” (John 11:11). “Awake and sing ye that dwell in dust” (Isa. 26:19). “I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness” (Ps. 17:15). “Many of the bodies of the saints that slept arose” etc., etc. The Bible is full of the sleep of the dead.
Paul calls death an “enemy” (1 Cor. 15:26). Hezekiah calls it “the gate to the grave” (Isa. 38:10). God calls the realm of death “The land of the enemy” (Jer. 31:16). God is going to “swallow up death in victory” (Isa. 25:8). And this will be brought to pass at the resurrection (1 Cor. 15:54). If death is indeed a friend, why do good men so vigorously resent it?
“You treat no other friend so ill.”
Jesus says: “Where I go, thither ye cannot come” (John 7:34; 13:33, 36). Yet some teach that they got there nearly as quickly as he did, and that the thief got there just as quick; and that some even got there before he did. John writes: “No man hath ascended up to heaven, but ht that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven” (John 3:13). This is spoken to negate some one’s doctrine. Whose is it? Not even Enoch and Elijah have gone to that heaven where God dwells. Jesus is the only man who has ever gone there, and he is more than man. He now dwells in “light which no man can approach unto” (1 Tim. 6:16).
God told Adam where he should go when he died: “Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return” (Gen. 3:19). Webster says that “thou” is the pronoun used in addressing persons. “His breath goes forth, HE returns unto his earth” (Ps. 146:3, 4). “Man lies down” (Job 14:12). “Thou takes away their breath, they die and return to their dust” (Ps. 104:29). “All go unto one place; all are of the dust and all turn to dust again” (Eccl. 3:20). “There is no work, nor knowledge, nor device, nor wisdom, in the grave wither thou goes” (Eccl. 9:10).
If you will read the Scriptures carefully you will discover that the words which denote the personality are always applied to the physical man, and never to the breath or spirit of life. Hence we must conclude that the physical man is the real man, and that the spirit of life from God, is that which causes him to live.
12. It sanctions Satan’s falsehood by teaching that man does not surely die. “Man, thou shalt never die.” —R. H. Dana.
“Thou shalt not surely die.” —Satan (Gen. 3:4)
Scriptures Supposed to Teach It
First, because Samuel was dead and “the dead know not anything.” Secondly, the person seen was “like gods coming up out of the earth,” which is not a good description of a soul coming down out of heaven. Thirdly, he was described as an old man with a mantle, a poor description of an immortal soul, if such is meant. Fourthly, he said, “Why hast thou disquieted me to bring me up?” Strange talk for one who has just come down from heaven, if such be true. Fifthly, Samuel could not promise heaven to wicked men, and such were Saul and his sons.
The “rich man” has been regarded as representing the Jewish priesthood, which indeed was “clothed in fine linen and fared sumptuously every day.” The poor man or Lazarus represents those social and moral outcasts of Israel, who were excluded from the temple worship and were regarded as fitting associates for the Gentile “dogs,” as they were called. Jesus was censured for receiving and eating with this same class of Jews (see chap. 15). Christ responds by a series of parables, of which this is one. The parables of the lost sheep, the lost piece of silver and the prodigal son represent the return to the favor of God of “the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” The parable of the unjust steward hinted the collapse of the Jewish priesthood and their attempt to retain their position by fraud. The parable of the rich man and Lazarus represents by the figure of death and burial the total collapse of the Jewish priesthood, while the poor man undergoes a figurative death unto sin and is received into the very bosom of the Abrahamic covenant. The subsequent wailings of the Jewish priesthood, while rejecting Christ, yet pleading for mercy, or rather hoping for recognition through their relation to Abraham, while they are separated from the Abrahamic covenant by the gulf of unbelief, is fitly represented in the language of the parable: and this same gulf of unbelief places them beyond the reach of those who would otherwise help them, and becomes an insuperable barrier to the rest of the Jewish family, who having “Moses and the prophets,” hear them not.
The Curetonian Syriac, the oldest known version of the New Testament, renders the passage thus: “Verily I say unto thee today, thou shalt be with me in Eden’s garden;’ making it mean as if he had said, “I give you a present assurance, now, today, that when I shall come into my kingdom, you shall be with me in paradise.” This makes it harmonize with the thief’s request, which was to be remembered when he should come (return) into his kingdom, not when he went away to receive it (Luke 19:12). Latter translations place the comma after “today,” which of course changes the meaning. We like the old punctuation the best, as it makes the passage harmonize with the uniform teaching of the word of God. Put the comma after “today” and all is plain.
Punctuation is a modern invention, and is not inspired. Webster says: “The ancients were unacquainted with punctuation; they wrote without any distinction of members, periods or words.” Hence it is our duty to punctuate the Scriptures according to their true sense and harmony. A very learned author, M. Grant, lays down this rule: “When the verb in the sentence is in the indicative mode, present tense, first person singular, the adverb qualifies the verb it follows.” This rule makes the adverb today qualify the verb say; and hence requires the comma after “today,” as in the Curetonian Syriac. The word “today” is here used for emphasis, and when thus used is a term of assurance, and is well illustrated in Deut. 28:1, 15; 30:18, 19; 32:46.
That the common understanding of this text is erroneous is evident from the following considerations: First, Christ did not go to heaven that day, but three days afterward said: “I am not yet ascended” (John 20:17). Secondly, if Christ went to heaven that day, then he must have “come again,” in order to be here on the morning of the third day, which would put his second coming in the past. St. Paul put it in the future (Heb. 9:28). Thirdly, his soul came from hades at his resurrection and not from heaven (Acts 2:31).
11. Phil. 1:23 and 2 Cor. 5:8—Paul’s desire “to depart and be with Christ” was not a desire for death, but for immediate translation to the presence of Christ. True, to die was “gain,” for he was going to magnify Christ in his body, whether by life or death. If he lived this would be the fruit of his labor; but if he died a martyr for Christ he would thus magnify him in his death. In either case he would gain eternal life. See Matt. 10:39. As between a life of anxious toil and labor on the one hand, and death as a martyr on the other, Paul had no choice. “I am in a strait betwixt two,” he said; “what I shall choose I wot not.” What Paul did choose was neither life in this present world, nor death, but something far better than either, viz., “to depart and be with Christ.” He so yearned for the present of Christ, that if possible he would at once be translated to his presence. But he knew that his desire could not be granted (v. 25). Besides, it was more needful for the church that he abide or remain with them (v. 24). Yet he was “willing rather to be absent from” them and by translation “to be present with the Lord.”
2 Cor. 5:8—“Absent from the body,” that is, from the church, for the church in this present world is “the body of Christ.” (See Rom. 12:4, 5; Eph. 1:22, 23; Col. 1:18, etc.) It is sometimes objected that the church is not meant in 2 Cor. 5:7, 8, because that when Christ comes again to raise the dead Paul will be at home in the church and present with the Lord, too. The answer is two-fold:
First, the church militant is called the body of Christ, while the church triumphant never is.
Secondly, the logic of this argument is fatal to the position that the physical body is meant, for when Jesus comes and raises the dead, then Paul will be at home in his body and present with the Lord, too; a condition positively denied in the words: “While we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord.” But if we understand the body to be the “church militant,” all is plain.
Thirdly, our house “not made with hands” is “eternal.” What will God do with the eternal bodies of those who backslide and never get to heaven to occupy them? Fourthly, when this mortal is raised, and puts on immortality (see 1 Cor. 15:42-54), what will we do with the extra body? Won’t we have one body too many?
Fifthly, if we get an eternal body at death, what need is there of a resurrection? Will we need two eternal bodies to make us happy? Let us now consider what Paul really meant. This is not the only place where Paul has spoken of these things. In Heb. 9:11, while contrasting the old covenant and its service with the new, he says: “But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, but a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands.” We pause to ask, what does Paul mean by the phrase, “not made with hands”? Does he mean anything? Yes, let him explain. “By a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building.” There can be no doubt that Paul refers to the temple at Jerusalem when he speaks of “this building” in contrast to the one “not made with hands,” which temple answered to the former tabernacle reared in the wilderness.
Now hear Paul again: “Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands” (Heb. 9:24). So we see that Paul means something by the words “not made with hands,” and that he uses the expression to distinguish between God-made things and man-made things. Paul was a Jew, and hence could speak of the temple at Jerusalem—so soon to be destroyed, as “our earthly house of this tabernacle,” which he in Hebrews calls “this building,” and a “worldly (earthly) sanctuary.” It was soon to be dissolved, or taken down, but what of that! We have a “more perfect tabernacle” wherein Christ has entered for us, and where we may enter by him, and as we have been clothed with the benefits of the earthly tabernacle, we may be more completely clothed with the heavenly tabernacle in the reception of greater blessings, even life and immortality. And when the new Jerusalem comes down (Rev. 21), “the tabernacle of God” will be with men and we shall then be fully invested with “our house which is from heaven.” Thus mortality will have been “swallowed up of life;” and then “there shall be no more death neither sorrow nor crying.” *
Fourthly, what were the white robes? They were “the righteousness of saints” (Rev. 19:8). The white robes are “given” to them, implying imputed righteousness. Thus were they committed to the earth, in humble trust, to “rest” until earth’s persecutions are past; when they will “awake to eternal life” (Dan. 12:2).
“For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voices 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” (1 Thess. 4:16, 17).
“Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus” (Rev. 22:20).
* We wish to notice in passing that instead of “we” in the first line of 2 Cor. 5:4, Wilson translates “those,” which seems to better express the original.
Published by the Western Advent Christian Publications Association, Mendota, Illinois. Reprinted by the Advent Christian General Conference of American, Inc., Charlotte, N.C., 2004.