(Continued from page 275.)

Chapter VIII Consciousness in the Disembodied State

Are departed souls conscious, or in a dormant condition ? Those who agree with the views I am defending may think it is hardly necessary to raise the question of the consciousness of the disembodied spirit. When the continued existence of the spirit after death is established it seems only logical to regard it as conscious. If death is not the extinction of the person, but only a dissolution, then that which is the center of personality not only continues to exist, but does so as a conscious personality. The expression, "Dust thou art," does not apply to the spirit, which is not dust, as it did not come from the dust. "Unto dust shalt thou return " cannot be applied to it, therefore:it does not go to corruption. Consciousness is not centered in the body, but in the spirit. It is a conscious spirit in the body, and must be so when out of the body.

There are those, however, who dispute it; and, while admitting the continued existence of the soul after death, they affirm it is in a dormant state. In denying consciousness to the spirit between death and the resurrection, they rely mainly on Old Testament scripture to uphold their doctrine.

It will be in place, therefore, to raise the question:What is the voice of the Old Testament on this subject ? Does it teach that the departed spirit is conscious, or does it predicate its unconsciousness? Are its statements so equivocal as to leave us in great uncertainty as to what the Old Testament view is ?

In another connection we have looked at Gen. 15:15, "And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace." We have seen that Abram is told that when he should die he would go where his fathers before him had gone:his fathers still existed somewhere, and he is to go to them to be with them. If they are not conscious, and he is not to be conscious when he goes to be with them, then there is no force in the statement-nothing to give him comfort. But he is assured that he will go to them "in peace." This is perhaps generally taken to mean that he is to die in peace. I do not refuse this, but this is not all that it expresses. Is not a peaceful continuance implied ? Is there not the thought that when he finds himself with his fathers he will be in peace, in rest from the toil and conflict connected with his earthly pilgrimage ? Is there not in it a promise that when he dies he will be free from what makes this present life a struggle ? God is telling him, surely, that on the other side of death he will enjoy rest and peace.

Some one will say, This is mere inference, and an unsafe foundation on which to rest our faith in the conscious condition of the dead. I grant it is inference, so far as this particular passage is concerned, but is not the inference perfectly legitimate ? If an inference is objected to, it would be equally inadmissible to infer that Abram's condition after death must be in unconsciousness. To this many will agree, yet insist that we must not infer at all.

But there are many other passages in the Old Testament bearing on this subject. If the inference is in agreement with the uniform voice of these passages, then it strongly confirms the legitimacy of the inference; and it must be admitted that such an inference is not inconsistent with the general testimony of Scripture.
Now, in turning to a few of the many passages in which the question we are considering is involved, what do we find ? Is there any definite statement to the effect that the dead are conscious? Is their consciousness anywhere denied ? Are there utterances which can be regarded as possible affirmations, or statements that are not ambiguous ? Let us see.

The issue between the consciousness or unconsciousness of the. dead is fairly raised in a statement of Gen. 37:35. Jacob says:"For I will go down into sheol unto my son mourning." As we have before remarked, Jacob believed that his son had been torn to pieces, devoured by an evil beast, and in his grief refuses to be comforted. He thinks of Joseph's spirit in sheol-and his own spirit going there when he dies ; then he will be with his beloved son. Now suppose that the state of the departed is one of unconsciousness; does it not evacuate from Jacob's statement and expectation all its value and force ? What satisfaction is there to be with a friend if it is in unconsciousness? Nay, that is not to be with him at all; for Jacob to be thus with Joseph would, in reality, not to be with him – no intimacy, no intercommunion, nothing that constitutes the reality of being together. It is evident that Jacob conceived of Joseph's departed spirit as conscious, and anticipated on dying to be consciously with him. Was Jacob's hope a mistaken one ? There is not a word in the whole account to correct it, if it were. To suppose he was laboring under a delusion, or misapprehension, is pure assumption. There is not the slightest warrant for it.

2 Sam. 12:23 is a passage we may class with the one we have just looked at. Referring to the child that has just died, David says, "Can I bring him back again ? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me." The child had passed out of this earthly life into another. The spirit is departed from the body; and though the resurrection will be a reunion of spirit and body it will not be a return to this present earthly life. . David understands this and says, "Can I bring him back again ?" and, " He shall not return to me."

If it be said there have been cases of the dead returning to this life, the answer is they are all exceptional cases-cases permitted of God for special reasons. As exceptions they establish the rule rather than contradict it. Notwithstanding these few exceptional cases, it may be boldly maintained that the departed dead do not return to this present earthly condition of life.

After resurrection, life shall be in a different condition; but David is not thinking of the then far-away day of resurrection. " I shall go to him " is not language that can be used in connection with resurrection. But David thinks of the place of departed spirits. The spirit of his child is there, and David expects to go there in the same way. When the time comes for his dissolution then his spirit shall be with the departed one. Is it possible that David should have used such language if he had thought of the child's spirit and his own in a state of unconsciousness ?

Evidence of the departed spirit's consciousness is given in the account of Saul's consulting the woman with a familiar spirit. In his desperate strait, forsaken of God and hard pressed by the Philistines, he desires to get in communication with the spirit of Samuel. Necromancy was his only hope. The power of Satan had developed a system of spirit activity which made it possible for some to claim the power of intercourse with the spirits of the dead. The witch of Endor was one of these, practicing this wicked art strongly condemned by God. Nevertheless Saul resorts to it.

In this particular case God interposed, and instead of the usual order in this evil practice, He allowed the spirit of Samuel to appear, much to the dismay of the wicked medium (i Sam. 28:11, 12). Evidently she was not expecting it; it shows how false were the claims of these professed consulters with the dead.

Another thing also may be noticed in passing. Samuel does not communicate with the woman with a familiar spirit. She is altogether ignored by him. He communicates with Saul directly. This also is a testimony against the wicked art.

My special point in looking at this sad and remarkable account is its witness to consciousness after death. Samuel had died. He had passed out of the sphere in which he had to do with earthly things, was now free from the burden and strife of earthly life. He rebukes, therefore, the interruption of his peace and rest. He was conscious of his rest, then, and conscious of its interruption.

He is also proved to be a conscious spirit by his present realization of Saul's sin and disobedience, and his recollection of his own prophecy, recorded in chap. 15:28. Further, he declares the calamity that is impending, and tells Saul, "To-morrow shalt thou and thy sons be with me." Samuel is consciously in the world of the spirits of the dead.

I may remark here that the prevalence of necromancy proves how wide-spread was the belief that the spirit continues to exist after death and that the departed spirits are conscious. Had there been no such belief it would have been impossible for such a practice to have been introduced. There was foundation for the belief in revelation, and Satan used the belief to promote evil ends. No one should be misled by the fallacious argument that the Scripture condemnation of the practice as evil disproves the doctrine of the soul's existence after death and the conscious state of the dead.

In referring to this passage I call attention to the fact of its early practice. In Deut. 18:9-14 the reader will find necromancy among the list of abominations practiced by the Canaanitish nations before the children of Israel took possession of the land. It was evidently a common practice in those early days, and, we may presume, had been a long time before:and this wicked art was probably not confined to those nations.

Warburton's statement that "The Old Testament says nothing whatever about a future life, but implies the total and eternal end of men in death," is decisively disproved by this passage, for it shows that not only the belief in the continued existence of the soul after death prevailed in Israel, but also in other nations. It shows also that associated with it was the belief in the conscious state of the dead. The Bible condemnation of necromancy is not on the ground that the belief in a conscious life after death is false, but on the ground that the art is a wicked one-an abomination to the Lord.

I turn now to chapters 31 and 32 of Ezekiel. In chap. 31 the prophet denounces the ambitious aims of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. He warns him by the example of the Assyrian, who had already fallen under the judgment of God. He had risen to a great height of earthly greatness, and envied by other kings, but by his pride and boastful self-exultation he had brought down upon himself the wrath of God. It was a terrible and irresistible judgment. Verse 15 speaks of the day when God's judgment overwhelmed him, as "the day in which he went down to sheol." Then, in ver. it, God says, "I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall, when I cast him down to sheol with them that descend into the pit." The destructive judgment that befell the Assyrian had struck men with consternation and fear. But the effect upon living men is not the only result that is spoken of; it goes on to speak of what takes place "in the nether parts of the earth." Other and lesser dignitaries had also been humbled-their honor and grandeur in the earth were brought to nought and themselves cast down to sheol. They are represented as comforting themselves there. What is their comfort ? A greater than themselves is sharing in their humiliation. They are conscious then- clearly so.

Now ver. 18 threatens " Pharaoh and all his multitude " with a similar fate. "Yet shalt thou be brought down with the trees of Eden unto the nether parts of the earth." Their souls will go to sheol-this on the one hand, while on the other their bodies will lie among "the uncircumcised with them that be slain with the sword."

The threatened judgment of which Pharaoh is here warned is set forth in the next chapter, vers. i to 16; and then in vers. 17 to 32 we have another lifting of the veil over sheol-the land of the spirits
of the dead. In ver. 18 the prophet is told to "wail for the multitude of Egypt, and cast them down, even her, and the daughters of the famous nations, unto the nether parts of the earth, with them that go down into the pit." Then, in ver. 21, we read, " The strong among the mighty shall speak to him out of the midst of sheol." In ver. 22 Asshur is represented as being there; Elam, in vers. 24,25 ; Meshech and Tubal in vers. 26-28; and Edom in vers. 29, 30. Then, in ver. 31, we are told, "Pharaoh shall see them, and shall be comforted over all his multitude." They are represented as speaking to one another in Sheol; as seeing, and being comforted. Clearly, to the prophet Ezekiel the spirits of the dead were conscious.

We are familiar with our Lord's use of Exod. 3 :6. He asserts there that Moses taught the continued existence of the soul after death as well as that the dead shall rise again. But our Lord's argument, based on the statement of Moses in this verse, for the continued existence of the soul after death and the resurrection of the dead, is also an argument for conscious existence. There would have been no force whatever in God saying, " I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob," if the spirits of these fathers were not conscious. The expression implies and supposes that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were still consciously in relationship with God; that their dissolution, their death, had not affected the relationship in which they stood with God, or their consciousness of it.

There are numerous passages in which God calls Himself the "God of thy fathers." All these texts imply the conscious existence of the spirits of those to whom they refer. There is also frequent allusion to the everlasting covenant God made with Abraham, a covenant that death could not nullify (Gen. 17:7). Citations of this class of texts are not needful. I only call attention to them.

Whether we consider the Old Testament representation of man's constitution and its view of what death is-not a cessation of being; whether we think of the numerous texts from which the consciousness of the dead is a logical and just inference; or whether we speak of such passages as those in which the consciousness of the departed spirit is directly and positively affirmed, the Old Testament Scriptures are seen to be a consistent whole. The doctrine of the consciousness of the souls of men after death is manifestly a part of their structure. It is a part of the web and woof of revelation. To deny the doctrine is to deny the force and value of the Old Testament as a whole. The denial evacuates it of its meaning, of its intrinsic worth, and of its power over the consciences of men. C. Crain
(To be continued.)