A Scriptural Refutation of "Soul Sleep"

The Jehovah's Witnesses and Seventh-Day Adventists deny that the Christian goes to Heaven upon death. The former claim that the spirit is destroyed at death, to be recreated at the Judgment. The latter claim that the spirit remains, unconscious, with the body, often referred to as "soul sleep." Though their doctrines are different, they both derive from the earlier Millerite movement.

While both groups claim to be Bible-cased, this doctrine is certainly not Bible-based. And it is very easy to demonstrate that assertion.

"When He opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne. They cried out with a loud voice, 'O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before You will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?' Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been" (Revelation 6:9-11).

We see several things about these martyrs which are inconsistent with the JW and SDA claims. First, we can see that they are dead, because it explicitly states that they were slain. Yet, they are crying and speaking, so they are neither annihilated nor unconscious. Then they are given heavenly garments and commanded to wait. Not to sleep. That is, they are to be conscious of the accumulation around them of the spirits of Christians down through the ages, until the end of mortal existence.

Reprobation: The Arminian Versus Jesus

It doesn't happen often, but should never happen at all, that I get this argument from Arminians: The doctrine of reprobation is bad because it means that some people , no matter how much they beg, cannot be saved, because they aren't elect. We are expected to have a mental image of people saying, "Oh, Jesus, I want to be a Christian, but you have barred my way!" And it is true, if that were the situation, that we would have grounds for horror.

But it is a claim of something that cannot happen.

The problem with the argument is that the Arminian underestimates the effect of sin on the will. The Bible speaks of the natural man when it tells us, "No one seeks for God" (Romans 3:11). And Jesus Himself told us, "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him" (John 6:44). Notice that He says "no one can," while the Arminian says that everyone can. Thus, the condition of the unregenerate man is the opposite of the man described by the Arminian.

Again, the Arminian is describing an impossible case. As the Presbyterian Theologian James Henley Thornwell wrote, "There never was a case, and there never will be a case, in all the history of the universe, of a penitent sinner's being damned" ("The Necessity and Nature of Christianity").

This is my challenge to Arminians: If your doctrine results in a situation that even Jesus says is impossible, doesn't that demonstrate that it is your doctrine that is false?

The Revelation versus Manmade Eschatology

I have noticed that, in popular, "Left Behind"-style eschatology, there is always an immediate rush past the first chapter of the Revelation to offer hair-raising interpretations of the symbols in the rest of the book. I don't want that to be taken to mean that I don't understand that rush. Studying the first chapter would shut down the exciting interpretations that make some men, such as Hal Lindsey, a lot of money.

Notice first verse 3: "Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near" (emphasis added). The events in the book, or, at least, the majority of them, are explicitly stated to be in the near future when John was writing these words. Not two-thousand years and counting afterward!

In particular I want to direct your attention to verse 9: "I, John, your brother and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus." The two important words here are "tribulation" and "kingdom." Dispensationalists love to make up new theories about a future tribulation, mostly involving the modern State of Israel. And the Kingdom, i. e., of God, they put off until some future millennium that supposedly occurs after the return of Christ. Yet, John tells us that he was sharing in both at the time he was writing (which I believe to be about 68 AD, shortly after the beginning of the Roman campaign against Israel and Jerusalem).

Any sober reading of the Revelation must, therefore, conclude that most of the feverish teaching that is so popular today is merely manmade (un)science fiction, not biblical exegesis.

Jesus Teaches Sovereign Election

I will be frank: I do not understand Arminians. They claim to believe the Bible, and yet claim that the doctrines of grace are not found there. That claim is in spite of the statement of those doctrines in virtually every book of the Bible, and by every major figure in the Bible.

Consider the words of Jesus in Matthew 11:27: "All things have been handed over to Me by the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him."

This is not obscure. Jesus, God the Son, claims that the Father has given Him all authority over the creation and its residents (compare Matthew 28:18-20). He explicitly claims the authority to decide to whom to reveal the Father, thus denying Him to all others.

How is that not sovereign election? How does an Arminian read those words, and yet continue to claim that the real truth is that it is "anyone who chooses to have Him revealed"?

"Natural Religion": Can a Man Be Saved by God's Revelation in Man and Nature?

The Bible clearly teaches that God reveals Himself in His creation, such that unbelief is a suppression of knowledge, leaving the unbeliever without excuse, whether he has heard the Gospel or not (e. g., Psalm 19:1-4, Romans 1:18-22). That is half the equation. The other half is what I am addressing here: can a person be converted by what he can know of God from the creation, apart from ever hearing the word of God?

In general, theologians have answered this question with a "no." That is because the Bible also tells us that men are converted, under normal circumstances, only by the preaching of the Word of God: "How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in Him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, 'How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!' But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, 'Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?' So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ" (Romans 10:14-17).

There are exceptions. For example, we can think of John the Baptist, who was regenerate in the womb (Luke 1:15). Or we might think of infants who die, or the mentally-disabled. Theologians have also been conscious of these exceptions. For example, we find this in the Westminster Confession of Faith: "Elect infants, dying in infancy, are regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit, who worketh when, and where, and how He pleaseth. So also are all other elect persons who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word" (X:3).

However, apart from those exceptions, I think that the Scriptures require us to consider the Holy Spirit's speaking through the Word to be the only means of conversion of fallen men. "In the present condition of our race, whatever may be the evidences which exist within us and around us of the being, perfection, and character of God, of the condition of man, and the relation he sustains to his Creator, his darkened faculties are incompetent to gather from them the conceptions which make up the fabric of natural religion, however he may prove its truth from those sources, after the ideas have been suggested to the mind" (James Henley Thornwell, "The Necessity and Nature of Christianity").

Apostle Paul Refutes the Antinomian: Gentiles and the Law

"Let Israel be glad in his Maker;
     let the children of Zion rejoice in their King!
Let them praise His name with dancing,
     making melody to Him with tambourine and lyre!
For the Lord takes pleasure in His people; 
     He adorns the humble with salvation.
Let the godly exult in glory;
     let them sing for joy on their beds.
Let the high praises of God be in their throats
     and two-edged swords in their hands,
to execute vengeance on the nations
     and punishments on the peoples,
to bind their kings with chains
     and their nobles with fetters of iron,
to execute on them the judgment written!
     This is honor for all His godly ones.     
      Praise the Lord!"
- Psalm 149:2-9

In debates between Seventh-Day Adventists and evangelicals, I often see the evangelicals argue that the judaizing of the Adventists is wrong because, they claim, the Law was only for Israel. I don't know whether that doctrine originates in dispensationalism, but I do know that it is just as wrong as the Adventists' holding on to Old Testament food laws.

These antinomians appeal to comments in Paul, such as Romans 2:14: "Gentiles, who do not have the Law." Yet, they pass over what he says just before that: "For all who have sinned without the Law will also perish without the Law" (verse 12). So, the Gentiles, who are not under the Law, yet sin. What is the definition of sin? "Sin is lawlessness" (I John 3:4). So, what constitutes sin is defined by the Law. Therefore, the question must be, If the Gentiles are not subject to the Law, as the antinomian asserts, then how can he be said to sin? The antinomian cannot answer.

However, the same passage gives us the solution: "They [i. e., the Gentiles] show that the work of the Law is written in their hearts" (Romans 2:15). Therefore, the Gentiles certainly do have, and have always had, the Law. They have simply not had the written Law. The standards of right and wrong applied to the Gentile just as they applied to the Jew. However, the Jew had two advantages: first, he had the law written, and thus was not dependent on his fallen conscience to direct his life; and second, he had the ceremonial Law, which pointed him to the coming Messiah who would redeem him from his sins and their consequences. Not having the written Law, the Gentiles were without the hope of forgiveness and sanctification. 

To show the Old Testament foundation for Paul, I direct your attention to the Psalm above. It starts with the pleasure that God has in His redeemed people. However, it also tells us of the judgment on His enemies. How can the antinomian see any justice in that vengeance if God had provided no means for the Gentiles to know moral truth?

Reprobation, the Rejection of the Gospel, and the Sovereignty of God

Many professing evangelicals, perhaps even most (I think so), claim that the decision for belief or unbelief is made by the hearer of the Gospel, through his own independent, sovereign decision-making process. Every person is equally able to believe the word preached, or to reject it. Where that idea originates, other than the obvious spiritual explanation (Genesis 3:15), has always eluded me. Doesn't calling oneself an "evangelical" include the belief in sola scriptura?

The reason I ask that is because such a major spiritual doctrine is asserted without biblical support. Not that its supporters don't claim biblical support, of course. But show me a case which does not boil down to either a supposed requirement that God must respect "free will" (another extra-biblical doctrine), or to some

supposed moral requirement that a choice necessarily implies the natural and equal ability to choose either option. Either way, the reasons aren't biblical, but based on a humanistic presupposition. God is not bound by humanistic presuppositions. Just sayin'!

However, beyond the extra-biblical reasoning on which this choice doctrine is based, there is plenty of biblical evidence to the contrary. And here I refer not even to something that an Apostle wrote, but to words from the mouth of Jesus Himself. Surely no evangelical can question the final authority thereof!

In His final week of life, when He was performing ministry in Jerusalem, the earthly capital of the historical biblical faith, Jesus faced some Jews who were unsure of His messianic office. Most Jews still held to the erroneous view that the Messiah would be a political figure who would drive out the Romans and reestablish the Davidic kingdom.We are told, "Though He had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in Him" (John 12:37). If the passage stopped here, the average American Christian would claim that He had simply failed persuade the free will of these people to believe.

However the passage continues, giving the inerrant, divinely-inspired explanation, which is very different. "[This ooccurred] so that the word spoken by the Prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: 'Lord, who has believed what he heard from us, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?' Therefore, they could not believe. For again Isaiah said, 'He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, lest they should see with their eyes and understand with their hearts, and turn, and I would heal them'" (John 12:38-40).

Thus, the Holy Spirit tells us, through the Apostle John, what our eyes and minds could not otherwise have understood: the unbelief of these people was because God had blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts. He had made them unable to believe!

There is no respect for free will here. There is no sovereignty in the choices of men. Rather, there is a choice given to men, in which their natures were made able only to answer with unbelief.

The Sense of God in the Minds of Men

In the defense of their program of baptism for the dead, Mormons claim that God gives a second chance for conversion to those who never had a chance to learn about Jesus in this life. In fact, they object to the phrase "second chance," because, they claim, such people had never had a first chance. It would be unjust, they claim, for God to punish for unbelief those who had never had a chance to learn about Christ.

Of course, they completely blank out the biblical teaching that unbelief is an act of will, not of ignorance. No unbeliever is merely ignorant of God; rather, he actively hates God.

"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For His invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things" (Romans 1:18-23).

In this passage, the Apostle Paul explains that God has so revealed Himself in the creation that no one can claim to be ignorant of His existence or sovereignty. That assertion comes straight from Paul's Bible, what we know as the Old Testament: "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims His handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world" (Psalm 19:1-4). This is a description of God's self-revelation through His works of creation. In theology, it is called natural or general revelation, because it is available to every human being who has ever existed. This revelation is general, but is suppressed in his awareness by the unbeliever. Again, his unbelief isn't an accident of ignorance, but, rather, a deliberate suppression of what they know to be true.

When Paul spoke to the pagans at the Areopagus in Athens (Acts 17), this was the basis of his argument to them. The Athenians had an altar to "The Unknown God" (Acts 17:23). This God could not be literally "unknown," or they would not know that He was unknown to them. Therefore, this altar was a tacit admission that there was a God whom the Athenians left unnamed, the very God, the triune God of the Bible, whom Paul then proceeded to explain to them.

In the Old Testament, King Solomon tells us (Ecclesiastes 3:11), "He has put eternity into man's heart." God has made man with an irrepressible spiritual nature, an awareness of God and a need to be in fellowship with Him. Thus, while Paul in Romans and King David in Psalm 19 make their cases from the revelation of God in His works, Solomon proves Him from the nature of man, His created image-bearer.

As Presbyterian Theologian James Henley Thornwell paraphrased the biblical writers, "The interests of religion, in some form or other, must and will exact attention. Man is essentially a religious animal. His nature calls for religious worship. He must have God to pray to, as well as a God to swear by, and, while the true God is unknown [relationally], the heart will be filled with idols in His place. All idolatry consists essentially in the false worship of the true, or a superstitious worship of the unknown, God" ("The necessity and nature of Christianity.

All of these shows that the Mormon practice is unbiblical, not because it is different from the biblical baptism of the dead, but rather because it is based on an unbiblical assertion of an innocent ignorance on the part of the unrepentant unbeliever. Thus, if he leaves this life continuing in unbelief, the unbeliever is justly condemned (John 3:18, Hebrews 9:27).

Dispensationalism and Learned Helplessness in the Church

In psychology, there is a concept known as "learned helplessness." It refers to people who experience criticism no matter what they do. Therefore, they stop trying to do anything. In the theological realm, I see this concept in Christians influenced by the hermeneutic of dispensationalism. Dispensationalists believe that work to change this world is no better than "polishing brass on a sinking ship." That is, it is a purposeless activity, doomed to failure. And, of course, that supposition sucks the power right out of any efforts to have an impact on this world.

On the other hand, as a postmillennialist, I believe that efforts to change this world are empowered by the ruler of this world, King Jesus, and are, therefore, guaranteed success, not failure.

On what basis do I say so? Because it is the promise of the Trinity, not to me, but to the Son: "Sit at My right hand, until I make your enemy your footstool" (Psalm 110:1, and quoted frequently in the New Testament, such as Hebrews 1:13). Notice that I am not saying that I have the power, or even that the church has the power. Rather, it is the commitment of the triune God to the Son to honor Him with victory. How can such a promise fail of achievement? And how can such a promise not be a spur to success by the people of God?

"Let the church be in earnest after greater holiness in her own members, and in faith and love undertake the conquest of the world, and she will soon settle the question whether her resources are competent to change the face of the earth" (James Henley Thornwell, "Theology as a Life in Individuals and in the Church").