Immortality or Resurrection (Updated) by William West (reading strategies book .TXT) 📖

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
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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 worm shall
not die, and their fire shall not be quenched: and they shall be an ABHORRENCE to all
mankind" [Isaiah 66:24]. 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 them. 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
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
37:11-14 was speaking of a restoration of Israel when many did return to God which Ezekiel
pictured as a resurrection of the dead. See Isaiah 52:1-2; 26:5.
"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.
"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.
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 in Heaven or Hell, not in the
dust of the ground and not asleep? Orthodox teaches that long BEFORE the resurrection and
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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 the spirit of all goes
back to God at death, none will go to Hell. THERE IS NOTHING IN THE SPIRIT
RETURNING TO GOD THAT MAKES THOSE WHO ARE SAVED ANY DIFFERENT
FROM THOSE WHO ARE NOT SAVED. THE SPIRIT OF ALL RETURNS TO GOD; YET,
THOSE WHO USE THIS TO PROVE A PERSON HAS AN IMMORTAL SOUL SAYS, "NO,
SOLOMON WAS WRONG. THE SPIRIT OF THE LOST DOES NOT RETURN TO GOD AT
DEATH, SOME SAYS IT GOES TO HELL AT DEATH AND OTHERS SAYS IT GOES THE
BAD SIDE OF HADES AT DEATH."
1. Does the spirit of the lost go to Hell at death?
2. Or does the spirit of the lost go to the bad side of hades (Abraham’s bosom)?
3. Or does the spirit of all, the lost and the saved, return to God?
Has the zeal to prove Plato's immortal soul, which needs no resurrection, blinded him so he
does not see that he is going both ways at the same time? He believes that after the soul is freed
from the body by death [as Plato put it, freed from its earthly prison] that "it" is just as alive as
"it" will ever be, and when a person dies, he believes that person has everything that is ever going
to be dead, already dead; and everything that will be alive after the resurrection is already alive
and immortal from birth, the soul, the only part of a person that he believes will ever be immortal
he believes is just