Immortality or Resurrection, William West [best romance books of all time txt] 📗

their head as bronze and the earth under them as iron [Deuteronomy 28:23].
• The rain on their land made as power and dust unto they were destroyed [Deuteronomy 28:24].
• Defeated before their enemies and their carcasses shall be food for birds [Deuteronomy 28:25-26].
• Smite with boils of Egypt, with tumors, with scab, with an itch, which cannot be healed, with blindness, madness, and bewilderment of heart [Deuteronomy 28:27-28].
• They would not prosper and would be oppressed and robbed continually [Deuteronomy 28:29].
• Their wives would be violated, and they would build a house and not live in it, plant a vineyard but not use it [Deuteronomy 28:30].
• Many more curses if they did not obey the Lord [Deuteronomy 28:31-68]. Those who came out of Egypt and provoked the Lord died in the wilderness. Death was their punishment, not eternal torment after death [Numbers 14; Hebrews 3:16-19].
"I declare unto you this day, that you shall surely PERISH; you shall not prolong your days in the land" [Deuteronomy 30:18]. "So they, and all that appertained to them, went down alive into Sheol: and the earth closed upon them, and they PERISHED from among the assembly" [Numbers 16:33]. "And whatsoever soul it be that does any manner of work in that same day, that soul will I DESTROY from among his people" [Leviticus 23:30]. Throughout the Old Testament perish and destroy means dying and has nothing to do with any kind of torment after death. It would be past comprehension that God would give them such detail of what would happen to then in this lifetime and say nothing of the unending pain He was going to forever heap on them in Hell that awaited them.
"One of the first phenomena which draws attention in the Pentateuch is the omission, both in the historical and perceptive portions of it, of any mention of the immortality of the soul. If this view of man's nature were true in our time, it was true from the beginning, and true in the time of Moses. And if it were as important as it is supposed to be now, it was equally important then. Yet no single indication of it is discoverable in the writings of Moses...There is but one tolerable explanation of this silence. Moses was withheld by divine control from teaching what was 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.
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 LIKE DAVID (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 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 from 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 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