Outside of the gospel and the hope that it offers us in Jesus, I have appreciated no doctrine more than what the Adventists have taught me regarding death: that according to the Bible, the dead sleep until the resurrection, and the lost are eternally destroyed, not eternally tormented in hell. These are beautiful doctrines that tell us so much about the character of God.
As we know, however, our brothers and sisters in most other denominations not only reject this teaching but are often inflexibly resistant to it, even in light of overwhelming biblical evidence. Recently I gave a Bible study to a Messianic Jew, a Jew who believes in Jesus, about hell not being eternal torment but eternal destruction. What he said was enlightening, in that it helps explain the resistance to what you’d think most Christians would gladly accept, especially the good news that God will not torture Aunt Milly in hell forever, no matter how unrepentantly mean she was.
“You’re scaring me,” he responded. Why? Not because of the teaching itself, but because for 40 years he had believed one way, and to now be shown that not only what he had believed for all those years was wrong, but that so many other Christians, even those of his own fellowship, were wrong as well.
Our beautiful doctrines tell us so much about the character of God.
Yes, that could be scary.
I next studied with him the state of the dead. Before we were done, he said, “I have never heard this before.” For someone like me, who was taught, and accepted, from my earliest Adventist days that the dead sleep until the resurrection, I found his response enlightening as well.
During the study, however, I noticed something that I had never seen before. I shared with him the dozens and dozens of Old and New Testament texts that the dead sleep. For example, if you look up the phrase “slept with his fathers” in the KJV, you will find dozens of hits. “David slept with his fathers” (1 Kings 2:10). “And Asa slept with his fathers” (1 Kings 15:24). “And Hezekiah slept with his fathers” (2 Kings 20:21). “And Ahaz slept with his fathers” (2 Chron. 28:27). “So Omri slept with his fathers” (1 Kings 16:28). “So Baasha slept with his fathers” (1 Kings 16:6). And so forth.
Did you notice the vast difference between the destiny of the good kings, David, Asa, Hezekiah, and the bad kings, Ahaz, Baasha, Omri? You didn’t? That’s because there was none. When each king, good or bad, died, he “slept with his fathers.” Surely if the good kings had immediately soared off to “be with the Lord” while the evil kings had gone straight to hell, the Bible would have made some distinction, would it not? Instead, each king, good or bad, “slept with his fathers” and will so until either the first resurrection or the second.
How unfortunate that so many Christians have never heard of anything like these foundational, and important, biblical truths. And, even more unfortunate, some get frightened when they do. Such is the power of entrenched belief.
