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

not
true; a doctrine which was radically opposed to the fundamental facts of man's sin and mortality,
on which redemption proceeds" Edward White, Life In Christ, Third Edition, Page 148, 1878.
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The fifth commandment is the "first commandment with promise" [Ephesians 6:2].
What was the promise? Was it that one would be rewarded in Heaven? No, it had nothing
to do with life after death, but life on earth, "That your days may be prolonged, and that it
may go well with you on the land which the Lord your God gives you" [Deuteronomy
5:16].
UNDER THE JUDGES AND KINGS
Both under the Judges and later under the Kings the history of the Jews is one of
rebellion against God followed by defeat and captivity. When they repented and turned
back to God, they came out of exile and prospered.
"The entire history of the Jewish people as a nation, and as individuals, from generation to
generation, shows with what exactness the threatening of the law was fulfilled in judgment.
When they were obedient, the Lord prospered them, and rewarded them with fruitful seasons,
with increasing wealth and power, and made them superior to their enemies. But, when they
were rebellious and wicked, then followed adversity, defeat, captivity, and all the physical
calamities threatened in the Law. But, all this while we have not one syllable of an endless woe,
which is to be added to all the other woes. In no instance of rebellion against God, not when
their corruption and idolatry were at the highest reaches of crime and blasphemy, do we find
them threatened with the torments of a hell beyond the present life." Thomas Thayer, "Origin
And History Of The Doctrine Of Endless Punishment"
All the blessings and all the punishments of the Law were physical in their lifetime.
Punishment or reward after death is not promised. For thousands of years throughout the
Old Testament, God warned of punishments in this lifetime if anyone did not keep the
Law, but not one warning that anyone would "go to Hell." Death [mooth] is used
hundreds of times and except the few times it is used in a symbolic passage it always
means an actual physical death. The concept of Heaven is in the Old Testament but only
as the dwelling place of God [Psalms 11:4; 33:13-14] and of angels [Genesis 21:17;
22:11; 28:12]. Heaven in the Old Testament was not a place where any person would
ever be and where they would live forever. The God of Israel was a God who would
protect them, give them blessings in this lifetime if they were faithful to Him and punish
them only in this lifetime if they were not. The savior they looked for was A PERSON
(not the Son of God) who would restore Israel as a nation and make it be superior to other
nations. Even after His death and resurrection His apostles still thought the Christ they
and all Israel looked for would restore the nation of Israel to their land and rule national
Israel in his lifetime, that he would be a human king only of Israel only in his lifetime as
David was [Acts 1:6]. A resurrection to immortality and life in Heaven was a new
teaching by Christ [2 Timothy 1:10] and was unknown in the Old Testament. The
word resurrection is used forty-one times in the New Testament but not once in the Old
Testament. One of the great difficulties with the eternal torment view is the profound
silence of the Old Testament about it. How could God have warned Israel in detail about
punishments in this life, droughts, plagues, and other punishments and not say one word
about an eternal Hell which would be the worst of all punishments? The TOTAL
SILENCE of the Old Testament for thousands of years about this endless torment is proof
that it does not exist.
"For man to endure unending pain (characterized by fire) is a doctrine so awful to contemplate,
that it is reasonable to conclude it would be revealed to man from the beginning, and so revealed
that he could by no possibility misapprehend the consequences of sinning against his Maker; and
we might expect to find the terrible sentence reiterated from time to time throughout the
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Scriptures, especially upon occasions of aggravated sin and wickedness" W. T. Berger, The Wages
Of Sin And Everlasting Punishment, 1886.
"First. If their belief was the same as in our day, why did they never express themselves as
people now do in books, sermons, and common conversation. None can deny the wide
difference in the language used, or that the difference is proof that the new language had its
origin in new views concerning the future. An unscriptural doctrine always give rise to
unscriptural language; for the words of Scripture are the very best which could be chosen to
express the will of God to man. If the doctrine were of God, the words of Scripture would be
sufficient to express it. As we do not find this new phraseology in the Bible, we infer that the
doctrine it was introduced to teach is not there. Second. How is it to be accounted for that the
fears and feeling and exertions of good people, under the old dispensation, were so different
from the fears and feelings and exertions of Christians in our day, about saving men form hell? I
do not find that they express and fear of hell, and it is fair to conclude that
they had none. I find no examples of their fears about their children, their
relations, their neighbors, or the world at large, gong to eternal misery. As to
their feelings, I do not find a sigh heaved, a tear shed, a groan uttered, a prayer offered, or any
exertions made, as if they believed men were exposed to endless misery. We see parents, and
others, deeply affected at the lost of their children and friends by death; we see pious people
grieved on account of their disobedience to God's laws; but we find no expression of
feeling arising from the belief that such persons would lift up their eyes in
endless misery. Now, is it not strange that all this should be the state of the fears and feelings
of good people, if they believed such misery was to be the portion of the wicked? The whole race
of mankind was swept from the earth by a flood, Noah and his family excepted; but does this
good man deplore, in any shape, that as many precious souls should be sent to hell? God also
destroyed the cities of the plain. Abraham interceded that they might be spared, but used no
argument with God that the people might not go to hell to suffer eternal misery. If Abraham
believed this doctrine, it is possible he should have failed to urge it as an argument that all those
wicked persons must go to hell, if God destroyed them? No notice is taken of the very argument,
which, in our day, would be most urged in prayer to God, if anything similar was to take place. All
who have read the Old Testament know what vast numbers were cut off in a day, by war and
pestilence, and other means; yet do you ever hear it deplored by a single individual, as is often
done in our day, that so many were sent out of the world to eternal misery? If, in short, this
doctrine was then believed, a dead silence and the most stoical apathy were
maintained even by good men about it.”
“Under the Old Testament dispensation the sinful condition of the heathen nations is often
spoken of. But do we ever find the inspired writers representing those nations as all going to
eternal misery, or did they use similar exertions to save them from it as are used in the present
day? If the doctrine of eternal misery was know and believe in those day, is it not unaccountable
that so many ages should pass away before God commanded the gospel to be preached to every
creature, and before those who knew their danger should use exertions to save them from it? If
the doctrine be false, we may cease to wonder at this; but if it be true, it is not easy to reconcile
these things with the well known character of God, and the feelings of every good man. What
an immense multitude of human beings, during four thousand years, must
have lived and died ignorant that such a place of misery awaited them!" Walter
Balfour, "An Inquiry Into The Scriptural Import Of The Words, Sheol, Hades, Tartarus And
Gehenna" 1854.
The Law of Moses offered no atonement of reconciliation, if it had, the death of Jesus
would not have been needed. Then Jesus, our High Priest, would not have presented his
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sacrifice to the Father, and would not have brought life and immortality to light through
the gospel [2 Timothy 1:10].
From the first page to the last page of the Old Testament God warns no one of an
eternal life of torment after death if they were not faithful to Him.
THE SILENCE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
ON PUNISHMENT AFTER DEATH
Gehenna was used on four occasions by Christ and recorded in three of the four
Gospels, and one time by James. In the rest of the New Testament Gehenna was not used,
as Gentiles would not understand it; and the people not living near Jerusalem would not
know what Gehenna was, that it was the name of the trash dump of Jerusalem. Just as
most who read this would not know the name of the trash dump of London. John did not
use Gehenna in his gospel for when he wrote the destruction of Jerusalem was passed and
most believe his gospel was written to Gentiles, and Paul was an apostle to the Gentiles;
neither John nor Paul used Gehenna. EVERY TIME CHRIST USED GEHENNA, ON
ALL FOUR OCCASIONS IT WAS SPOKEN TO THE JEWS. Gentiles are not once
threatened with destruction in Gehenna.
Today, those who believe in Hell are always warning unbelievers about going to Hell
if they do not believe. Acts covers about thirty years of preaching, but not one time is
anything said about Hell. Paul said he did not keep back anything that was profitable
[Acts 20:20] and that he declared the whole counsel of God [Acts 20:27], yet in none of
his letters did he say anything about Hell. In about thirty years of preaching to many in
many countries, he never told any that they would be forever tormented in Hell if they
did not believe. Why? He certainly would not have omitted such a doctrine as Hell.
Today it is preached as a most profitable teaching, and the fear of Hell is used to keep
many going to church. Paul did not declare anything about Hell for the same reason he
did not declare anything about purgatory; there are no such places.
If the lost shall be forever tormented in Hell, it is only reasonably to believe there
would be many warning about it, but there are none. The Hell, which is preached today
was not a part of the teaching of the apostles and early church. The same strange silence
that is found through out the Old Testament is also through out the New Testament. Did
God just forget to warn a person of the awful place some are always preaching about?
Those who believe in Hell, try to prove it by their interpretation of metaphors and
symbols for they have not one plain statement in the whole Bible. The name they give it
(Hell) is not in the Bible. The place they preach about is not in the Bible under any name.
Its origin is Pagan to the core.
With no revelation from God about Hell, how could we: (1) Know