Further Thought: Read Ellen G. White, “The First Great Deception,”
pp. 531–550, in The Great Controversy.
If you have ever been in surgery and were put out with general anesthesia,
you might have a faint idea of what it must be like for the dead.
But even then, when under anesthesia, your brain still functions. Imagine
what it would be like for the dead, when all brain function, everything,
has totally stopped. Their experience in death, then, is to close their eyes
and, as far as each dead person who ever lived is concerned, the next
thing they will know is either the second coming of Jesus or His return
after the millennium (see Rev. 20:7–15). Until then, all the dead, the righteous
and the wicked, rest, for what will seem to them to be an instant.
For those of us who remain alive, death seems as if it lasts for a long time.
For the living it does; but for the dead it seems to last only an instant.
“If it were true that the souls of all men passed directly to heaven at
the hour of dissolution, then we might well covet death rather than life.
Many have been led by this belief to put an end to their existence. When
overwhelmed with trouble, perplexity, and disappointment, it seems an
easy thing to break the brittle thread of life and soar away into the bliss
of the eternal world.”—Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, p. 539.
“Nowhere in the Sacred Scriptures is found the statement that the
righteous go to their reward or the wicked to their punishment at death.
The patriarchs and prophets have left no such assurance. Christ and His
apostles have given no hint of it. The Bible clearly teaches that the dead
do not go immediately to heaven. They are represented as sleeping until
the resurrection.”—The Great Controversy, pp. 549, 550.
Discussion Questions:
Ê How does the biblical notion of the human being as a whole—
who remains conscious only as an undivided person—help us to
understand better the nature of death?
Ë The world has been taken over by the theory of the natural
immortality of the soul, with all its uncountable ramifications.
Why then is our message about the state of the dead so crucial?
Why, also, even among Christians, do we find such strong opposition
to what is really a wonderful teaching?
Ì How should an understanding of the state of the dead protect us
from what might “appear” before our eyes? That is, why can’t we
always trust what we see, especially if what we see, or think we see,
is the spirit of a dead relative, as some have reported seeing?
