8. Jesus will bring the souls of the saints with Him from heaven. (1 Thess 4:14)
13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve, as do the rest who have no hope.
14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.
15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, and remain until the coming of the Lord, shall not precede those who have fallen asleep.
16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first.
17 Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and thus we shall always be with the Lord.
This passage is one of the strongest pointing out that death is a sleep. Paul explicitly equates death and sleep. The problem is that verse 14 sounds like the saints will come from heaven to earth. But again, that would contradict Paul's statements in the same passage that they are sleeping in the grave. The proper understanding of this is that Jesus will bring the dead saints FROM earth TO heaven (see John 14:1-3). Paul's point in verse 14 is that the dead will not be left behind. This passage lends no support to the idea that the souls of the dead are alive with Christ now.
9. The spirits of men made perfect are now in heaven. (Heb 12:23)
22 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels,
23 to the general assembly and church of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the Judge of all, and to the spirits of righteous men made perfect,
24 and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks better than the blood of Abel.
This interpretation comes from refusing to note the context of the statement. The writer of Hebrews is speaking to new prospects to the faith. These living Christians are figuratively described as coming to the abode of God, described as Mount Zion, Jerusalem, and the city of the living God. These people have not left the earth to go anywhere, whether in heaven or in the grave, so this is not a physical description of events. There is no reason to take the rest of the passage as literal. In fact, it is proper to understand the phrase about spirits in the context of the spiritual motivation of living persons who have joined themselves to Christ, and have thus been perfected. The prospects are then exhorted (v. 25 ff.) to not refuse the call to conversion.
10. Death cannot separate us from the love (presence) of God. (Rom 8:38-39)
38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,
39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
This marvelous reassurance of our security in Christ comes from the pen of the apostle which gave us such a clear statement of the state of the dead in 1 Thess 4. Those who are dead are unaware, but when at the resurrection, they will rise to an eternity with Christ. Paul has said here that even death cannot remove the security of the promises Christ has made to us in love. He has not said that we are alive after death so as to appreciate God's love between death and the resurrection.
11.
Christ confirmed that the body and soul are separate parts of man. (Matt 10:28, Luke 12:3-4)
28 "And do not fear those who kill the body, but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Matt 10:28
4 "And I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do.
5 "But I will warn you whom to fear: fear the One who after He has killed has authority to cast into hell; yes, I tell you, fear Him! Luke 12:3-4
On first glance the dualist approach might seem to be correct, but this ignores the context. The Jews had adopted the Platonistic idea that man consisted of two separate parts: a body and an immortal soul. Your soul never died, even if you were condemned, but suffered eternally in the fires of Gehenna. The message is tailored to people who were indoctrinated in this view. This disciples themselves were not yet conversant with the truth, for they had just been recruited.
In this passage, Jesus is giving the disciples the advertising message to take to the Jews to get them to come hear Him. He is telling them not to fear the Romans, who can kill them (kill the body) but not the soul (their eternal hope). They are instead to fear God who can do what they believe to be impossible: destroy them completely in hell. That this interpretation is correct is seen in the parallel passage in Luke. Jesus has used their incorrect beliefs as a hook to get their attention to listen to a teaching which flatly contradicts what they believed. He has turned dualism on its head by saying that the soul can be destroyed. So a passage which on first glance seems to support dualism in fact strikes against the heart of this false doctrine.
12. The gospel has been preached to the dead. (1 Pet 3:18-20; 4:5-6)
18 For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, in order that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit;
19 in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison,
20 who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water. (1 Pet 3:18-20)
5 but they shall give account to Him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.
6 For the gospel has for this purpose been preached even to those who are dead, that though they are judged in the flesh as men, they may live in the spirit according to the will of God. (1 Pet 4:5-6)
Both of these passages are from the same discussion. Peter is drawing out the idea that all should live holy lives, because all will be judged, since all have had the gospel preached to them in one way or another. Before we dig into the texts, we should note that in 1 Pet 3:19, the translators have added the word "now" to the text, implying that the proclamation made by Christ is a recent event to spirits while in some spirit prison. This is a dualist interpretation imposed on the text by dualist translators. If we remove this word which is absent in the Greek, we may see the intent of the passage.
Verse 19 is what we would call a parenthetical comment. Instead of referring to an event which is in sequence after the cross and resurrection in verse 18, it is a "by the way" statement. Jesus preached to "spirits in prison" at some other time. Verse 20 identifies these spirits as people before the flood, eight of whom were rescued in the ark. The term "prison" can be properly understood when we see Eph 4:8 where we see that "When He ascended on high, He led captive a host of captives." We are all captives of sin, and Jesus is our way to freedom from the prison of sin in which we are prisoners. At the cross, a number of saints were resurrected, and at Jesus' ascension he took them with Him. Now we can see that the expression "spirits in prison" refers to men living in the sinful world. Jesus' preaching "in the spirit" refers to His inspiration of Noah to preach repentance to the wicked world around him. It says nothing about a "spirit prison" where the souls of the dead are kept.
Having seen the proper understanding of first part of Peter's message, the second falls in place. He is not saying that the message was preached to an individual after his death. He is saying that even those who are now dead had an opportunity to hear the message while they were alive, and therefore are liable in the judgment. This echoes Rom 1:20 and Ps 19:1-4, which state that all persons have had the opportunity to learn about God, even if they have not formally heard the gospel.
This about covers the major issues which are raised by advocates of the dualist position. If one begins with a belief that man consists of a separate body and soul, it is possible to derive support from various NT passages, particularly when the translators have added words which support that position. But if one is willing to let scripture speak for itself, the clear testimony of scripture is that man is a soul, and that between death and the resurrection he "sleeps." He will awaken at the shout of the archangel at the second coming. All of the passages which have been used to support dualism prove to be either of no probative value, or as in the case of Matt 10:28, can be properly seen to be actually deny dualism.
If we properly understand the nature of death, we will have the same hope as the Apostles in the resurrection. If we accept the false doctrine of dualism, the hope of resurrection becomes an after thought, and of little value. The focus the NT gives to the resurrection become worthless, and the gospel a sham. It will also lead us to believe that punishment of the wicked will never end. This is not the image of a kind and loving God. This is sadism. If we accept the truth of the state of the dead, then we can accept the mercy of a God who will not torment the wicked forever and states his plan clearly. (Matt 10:28).
rather than from the brighter N.T. revelations directly concerned with life after death. The soul sleep crowd attempts reconciliation by giving precedence to the former over the latter but the opposite should be our method...
