word signifies dismissal, to depart. It is translated in the Sep- tuagint (Greek version of the Old Testament) with eis teen apopompee, which means to let him go for the dismissal. Both goats are for sin-offering. The first goat represents Christ dying for the sins of His people. The second goat, laden with those sins which were atoned for by the blood of the first goat, represents the blessed effect of the work of Christ, that the sins of the people are forever out of sight. It is a blessed harmony with the two birds used in connec tion with the cleansing of the leper.” This is consistent with the entire teaching of the Word of God. Fancy building a wild doctrine on one word and that a Hebrew word of which apparently the Adventists do not know the meaning! The Jehovah’s Witnesses take a word or two from Hebrew or Greek and build doctrines on them. -There has never been a great scholar in the Bibli cal languages in either of these cults, to my knowledge. Because so many Christians are misled into believing that the Adventists are wrong in only one point (a wrong under standing of the day on which to worship) they are very tolerant of them, and do not investigate their heresies. Many do not even know that they teach the same doctrines of soul sleep and annihilation of the wicked that the Jehovah’s Witnesses do. Seventh-day Adventism, Soul Sleep and Annihilation T he phrase, "sleep of the soul,” does not appear anywhere in the Scriptures. Wherever death is re ferred to as "sleep” , it has to do with the body. When Jesus raised from the dead the little daugh ter of the ruler of the synagogue, He said: "Why make ye this ado, and weep? The damsel is not dead, but sleepeth” (Mark 5:39). He said the same of Lazarus: "Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep” (John 11:11). And what did Jesus do? He raised the body after it had actually begun to decompose! In the case of both Lazarus and the little damsel, the Lord Jesus Christ brought back the spirit from the Father where it had gone, to join the body in resurrection, just as He will with all the children of God who thus sleep in the body, but are alive in the spirit. ". . . them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him” (1 Thes. 4 :14 ). Well, it is certain that Christ as He returns to the earth to raise the bodies o f believers will not bring their bodies with Him (I refer to those who have died, of course). The bodies will be in the grave. What will He bring with Him then— the spirits, of course! Surely not even the imaginative Adventists can conceive of disinte grated bodies— dust to dust— in Heaven! The Bible is filled with references to the fact that only the body o f the believer sleeps in the grave. His spirit is with the Lord. To quote a few: "And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many” (Matt. 27:52, 53). "But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God o f the dead, but of the living” (Matt. 22:31,32). Here is a description in Hebrews of the inhabitants of heaven: "T o the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect” (12:23).
The basis for the unscriptural soul-sleep doctrine is the rejection of belief in man’s undying spirit; that man is possessed of eternal existence, of immortality. Here is the official Seventh-day Adventist statement: "Man does not now possess the undying, spiritual nature except as he holds it by faith in Christ, nor will he until the resurrection. Then, if righteous, he will be made im mortal. And herein lies a most comforting thought in the Bible doctrine of the sleep of the dead, that in death there is no consciousness. All sentient life, animation, activity, thought and consciousness cease at death, and all wait till the resurrection for their future life and eternal reward” {Bible Readings for the Home Circle, pp. 381 and 387). T his is an utter denial of Scripture. Paul did not look forward to a long sleep in the grave when he stated that he was ". . . in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart and to be with Christ; which is far better” (Phil. 1:23, 24). It was hard for him to remain here when he knew it was but a step from earth to heaven into the presence of the Lord he loved. It is not easy to contemplate separation of spirit and body but if a Christian knows there will be no period of unconsciousness, that immediately after the spirit leaves the body, it goes to be with Christ, he is filled with joy un speakable and death surely loses its sting and its horror. Moses, who had died, appeared with Elijah, who had been translated, on the Mount of Transfiguration, and they talked of the death of Christ soon to occur on Calvary. They were not unconscious when they held that conversation. The rich man in Hades was not unconscious when he cried out that he was tormented and begged for someone to warn his brothers against that awful place. Nothing could be plainer than Ecclesiastes 12:7: "Then shall the dust [the body formed of the dust of the ground] return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.” The Adventists deny this. Here is their gloomy view: "The state to which we are reduced by death is one of silence, inactivity and entire unconsciousness” ( Fundamental Principles, p. 12). The Adventists, in company with the Jehovah’s Witnesses, do not know «vhat to do with the repentant thief on the cross to whom Jesus said: "Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). Certain ly He referred to the spirit of the penitent sinner, for short ly thereafter both his body and that of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself were taken down from the crosses on which they had been crucified. The spirit of that man was in the wonderful company of Christ. O f course, the companion heresy to soul-sleep, for some reason, is always annihilation of the wicked. This is the Adventist statement in regard to this teaching: "The wicked are to be utterly destroyed— consumed away into smoke, brought to ashes. Their destruction will, in fact, be an act of love and mercy on the part of God; for to perpetuate their lives would only be to perpetuate sin, sor row, suffering and misery. The fire is called 'everlasting’ because o f the character of the work it does; just as it is called ’unquenchable’ because it cannot be put out and not because it will not go out when it has done its work” ( Bible Readings for the Home ^ Circle, pp. 392, 394). MORE ^
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