(Concluded from page 211.)

If now we turn to Rev. 6:9-11, we read of a company-not an individual or two-but a company of men who, in a day yet to come, are to be "slain for the word of God." After they shall be slain, we are told, they will cry unto the Lord to judge and avenge their blood on their persecutors, and that they will be told that they must rest for a short season, until another company of their fellow-servants shall be slain in the same manner they have been. Here again consciousness is attributed to dead people. They are represented as realizing, in the dead condition, the great wrong that has been done to them in the taking of their lives. They are mentioned as intelligently entering into the great truth and fact that vengeance belongs to God. They are spoken of as making their appeal to Him, and they are comforted with the assurance that when another company of their fellow-servants shall have been slain as they have been, their great wrongs shall be redressed. All of this is absolutely inconsistent with the thought of their being in an unconscious state.

How this scripture confirms what the previous cases which we have considered have led us to ! And here objections which might be made to the cases of Samuel, and Moses, and Lazarus, and Dives, cannot apply. If it be said Samuel and Moses were exceptional cases-for special reasons, which, however, cannot be shown-it would involve the regarding of this company of slain ones as an exceptional company. But the fact of the company being so numerous would rather argue that if they are conscious in the death state, then we must believe all the dead are conscious. To suppose them to be an exceptional company is a strain on logic. Sound reasoning will not permit the suggestion. But what is still stronger evidence is, there is no hint in the Scriptures that this company of slain ones is treated as being an exception to the general rule. To believe that any dead are unconscious, we would need such a hint.

Again, it is sometimes said that the story of Lazarus and Dives is a parable. It is not so stated; but even if it is, it must set forth the truth. There is no suggestion of unconsciousness in it, whether it is a parable or actual history. But this account in Rev. 6:9-11 cannot be called a parable. It is a vision- a vision of something that is actually to take place. It is a vision of a company of dead people, and they are seen as a company who will be conscious when in the death state.

There is another scripture to which we will now turn-2 Cor. 12:2-4. Here we find the apostle Paul speaking of a man who was caught up to the third heaven. . He could not say whether he was carried there as in his body, or as disembodied; that is, as a spirit. The fact of being there he was conscious of, but he had no remembrance of having been conscious of his body while there. He had distinct remembrance of being conscious of things no human tongue could describe. He knew he heard "words " which can be spoken only in the spirit world.

Now it is clear that the apostle thought that it was possible that he might have died when he was caught up to Paradise. It is equally clear that he had no idea that a man in the disembodied condition, or death state, is unconscious. Whether he was in the body or out of it while he was there, he did not know; but he did know that he was consciously there. He thought, then, that there could be consciousness in the death state. He felt no difficulty in so representing it. Had he believed in the doctrine of the unconsciousness of the dead, there would have been a difficulty. He would have felt that his experiences in Paradise were inconsistent with his belief about the unconsciousness of the dead.

It has been said the apostle derived his ideas of the spirit world from his Pharisaical training. We need not discuss the question whether the belief of the Pharisees about the consciousness of the departed spirits was correct or not. All we need to reply is that the apostle is here writing by inspiration of the Holy Spirit. He is expressing himself in Spirit-taught words. (See i Cor. 2:13.) Did, then, the Holy Spirit misstate the truth in inspiring the apostle to write 2 Cor. 12:2-4 ? It would be blasphemy to believe this. It would be to charge Him with being a deceiver; to accuse Him of lying. There is, then, no escape from the conclusion that in this passage the Spirit of God testifies to the truth of the consciousness of the dead.

We will not carry our inquiry into the teaching of Scripture on the subject of the consciousness of the dead any further. It is not necessary to do so, for Scripture cannot be inconsistent with itself. We have already seen that it does speak of men who are in the death state, and that it mentions them as being conscious there. This is simple fact. There can be no evasion of it. The statements of the scriptures we have examined are all direct. There is no ambiguity about them. They assert as the fact the consciousness of the dead.

We need not, then, spend any time on discussing the meaning of certain words commonly relied on to establish the doctrine that the dead are unconscious, such as "gathered to his fathers," "slept with his fathers," "sleep." It would be erroneous to give these expressions a meaning that would make them to be inconsistent with what is by Scripture established to be a fact. A surely attested fact cannot be denied for the sake of maintaining a definition arbitrarily given to a term. Besides, those who have scientifically investigated the subject of dreams tell us that they rather witness to consciousness in sleep, that sleep is the symbol of unconsciousness only in a 'limited sense. Its use in Scripture is therefore consistent, not only with the scriptural doctrine of consciousness after death, but its natural use as expressing a limited unconsciousness. That is, the dead are not actively engaged in the affairs of this earthly life, though they are awake to the realities of the life beyond, and in the midst of which they are.

The doctrine of the unconsciousness of the dead, then, is utterly unscriptural. There is no foundation in Scripture for believing it to be true. All who bow to Scripture must reject it as a false doctrine.

Furthermore, it is fundamentally erroneous, because it affects the character of the death of Christ, who died as a substitute for those who lay under the sentence of death as the penalty of sin. If death as the penalty of sin is the witness that the sinner is under the wrath of God, then the sinner in the death state must be in consciousness; he is conscious of the wrath of God, consciously waiting the final ratification of the judgment under which he lies, which will be at the great white throne, when, finally judged, he will be sent into the final and eternal doom of the wicked. Now Christ died for sinners. He took their doom-their portion, both in death and the judgment that comes after death. He was not unconscious when in that doom. He was conscious of all its dreadful reality. Death to Him was the penalty of sin, the witness and pledge of an eternal judgment after death. If death is unconsciousness, then death would be a deliverance from the witness and pledge of eternal judgment. Thus it is clear that the doctrine of the unconsciousness of the dead destroys entirely the character of the death of Christ as the sinner's substitute.
The Lord give grace to hold fast the truth, to maintain the true character of the death of Christ, to contend earnestly for the true meaning of death itself as the penalty of sin. Let there be no weakness in refusing the now widely spread doctrine of the unconsciousness of the dead. Let us awake to what is in question. May the Lord deliver those who are ensnared in error. May His people be preserved in the profession of truth, and in the sense of its value. C. Crain