Life After Death (Part 2) - Between Death and Resurrection: David Pawson (Transcript)

Full text of Bible teacher David Pawson’s teaching on Life After Death titled ‘Between Death and Resurrection’ (Part 2)’…

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TRANSCRIPT:

David Pawson – Bible Teacher

Now we’re going to read from Luke’s Gospel chapter 16, if you care to follow it, verse 19. A passage in which Jesus said more about the life after death than anywhere else in all His teaching. It’s in the form of a story or a parable, but it’s true to life and the afterlife.

Luke 16:19-31: ‘There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen, and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, full of sores, who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man’s table. Moreover, the dogs came and licked his sores. The poor man died, and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom.

And the rich man also died, and was buried. And in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus in his bosom. And he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy upon me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.’

But Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.’

And he said, ‘Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father’s house, for I have five brothers, so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.’

But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets, let them hear them.’

And he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’

And he said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.’”

Let us pray.

Our loving Heavenly Father, we are dealing with serious subjects on these Sunday mornings, and we are very conscious of how much we need the aid of the Holy Spirit if we are to approach them properly, with open minds, neither exaggerating nor avoiding what You have revealed as true of the future. We pray, O Lord, that we may be ready and willing to hear whatever You have to say to us. We pray for the gift of discernment, that we may be able to recognize when human words come as Your word and when they do not. We thank You for revealing to us enough all that we need to know to prepare. We thank You that You have hidden so much from us so that we do not become so obsessed or preoccupied with the future that we become useless in the present. And we ask again this morning that You will meet the need of each one of us. We are amazed at the way in which You do this in a service like this. Each of us is at a different stage in the road. Each of us has had different experience of life. We have different questions, different problems, different fears. But we pray that somewhere in this morning’s service, every one of us may have a word that comes straight into our hearts from heaven itself, by which we will be able to live and by which we can face the future without fear, but with a strong faith and expectancy. And we ask this in the name of Him who rose from the dead, conquered death, brought life and immortality to light, and brought a living hope into our hearts, even Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

WHAT EXACTLY HAPPENS TO A PERSON WHEN THEY DIE?

Certain physical processes stop almost immediately. Breathing stops, the heartbeat stops, circulation stops. And it’s by the stopping of these things that we usually say this person has died.

Other processes go on for quite a time. For example, the growth of hair continues sometime after death. And a number of other bodily processes continue for the time. After a certain length of time, these processes also stop. Then decay and ultimately disintegration come to the human body.

We all know this, however unwilling we are to face it, this is what will happen to the body that I’m using to preach to you this morning. But that is not an answer to the question: what happens to a man when he dies?

I have only told you what happens to his body when he dies. And if man is only a body, then I’ve described the whole thing. He has ceased to be. You will never see or meet him again. If man is only a body, only a physical creature, if all that I think and feel and do is the result of my physical glands and enzymes and hormones, then I have already answered the question.

But the Bible is quite emphatic that man is very much more than a body. Indeed that the body is almost a secondary part of him. The Bible describes the human body in terms of a tent in which the real person lives, a tabernacle. It also describes the body as a suit of clothes worn by the real person.

And so Paul, for example, talks very confidently and without fear of the day when he will no longer live in this tent or this suit of clothes. And so he is not disturbed.

I remember walking past a cemetery with a Christian man whose parents I knew lay in the cemetery or whose parents’ bodies lay there.

And he said, ‘you know, I just think of their bodies as overcoats. They are not in there. And in fact once you can see that a cemetery is no more than a cloakroom, you are on your way to getting the right view towards death. A cemetery is a cloakroom where we put aside the old clothes we’ve worn for whatever it has been, 70 or by reason of strength 80 years.

And so the Bible really emphatically states that the real person is not the body, however intimately the body has been connected with the real person. The body is the tent, the suit of clothes which we put off one day. We no longer live in it.

A dear old Christian was asked by a minister, ‘How are you?’

And he replied, ‘Well, the roof leaks a bit, the walls are cracking, but I’m fine.’ I’m fine.

And he was just stating what the New Testament states, what Paul stated, my outward man is decaying, giving up, packing up, but my inward man is being renewed every day, getting stronger and better every day. And that is growing old from the Christian point of view. The outside may decay and may get older and more tired, the inside should be getting stronger and better all the time, being renewed.

In this we are quite different from all animals, and therefore death to the man is completely different to death to the animal. And if man is simply the product of an evolutionary process, this would not be true. Man is a unique combination of the physical and the spiritual, the natural and the supernatural.

And the meaning of death for man, unlike the animals, is not annihilation, it is not oblivion, it is not the end of that man.

WHAT THEN HAPPENS TO A MAN WHEN HE DIES?

And the answer is an answer that no doctor or scientist could give you. The answer is, when a man dies, it is the moment of separation between his body and spirit. That is what we understand by death. The moment when two things that have been intimately linked together, so close that you can’t think of them apart, having never known them apart, they spring apart and become two separate things. This then is the meaning of death.

And it’s very interesting that even in popular speech people recognise this. Somebody says to me recently, ‘Oh it is hard keeping body and soul together these days.’ Now what does she mean? She means precisely what she says. Keeping those two parts together is life. Death is when they separate and so living is keeping body and soul together.

Take another saying. People talk about don’t give up the ghost yet. What do they mean? They mean precisely the same thing. Don’t so accept death that you allow your spirit to escape your body now. And the very dot, dot, or dash, dash, dash, now which is it? Dot, dot, dot, dash, dash, dash, dot, dot, dot, S-O-S. It’s precisely keep our souls in our bodies. Keep them together. Save our souls, even though it is the body that is in peril.

Now the Bible puts it as simply as that and this is what, for example, the book of Ecclesiastes says about death, defining it.

‘Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return to the God who gave it.’ (Ecclesiastes 12:7)

Death is separation between these two things. We know what happens to the body. It came from the dust of the earth. There is not a particle in my body that cannot be found in the crust of the earth somewhere. And it goes back to that, came from that, dust thou art and to dust thou shall return.

If you rub your hands together and go on rubbing you can produce on a sheet of white paper a little pile of grey dust, the dead cells of your skin. And you can look at that dust and say that is a little bit of my body going back to where it came from. Now that is what happened to the body. We know that.

But the question I am concerned with this morning is: WHAT HAPPENS TO THE SPIRIT?

James in the New Testament, lest you think that I am entirely relying on Old Testament teaching this morning, says ‘the body without the spirit is dead.’ (James 2:26) In other words that is precisely what constitutes death. The body is now without the spirit. The two have been separated and are apart.

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I think it is very interesting that when Jesus died, He virtually told us the same thing. His body was near the end of its earthly life after 33 years and hours of torture. What did He say to God in the last moment of His life? He did not say, ‘Into Thy hands I commit Myself’ or ‘Into Thy hands I commit My body.’ His body would have to be looked after by others. He said, ‘Into Thy hands I commit My spirit!’ And having said this He gave up the Spirit.’

The spiritual part of Him, He gave to God. Joseph of Arimathea had to look after the physical part. Separation of the two.

Now this idea fits in very well with modern philosophy and with the ancient Greek philosophy which was the main kind of thinking in our Lord’s day. Those who do believe in life after death accept this general framework that whatever else it includes it cannot include this body. This body must be left behind. If there is a life after death it must be because the spiritual part of man survives. Now that fits in with ordinary thinking.

Until the New Testament makes a very startling statement and it is this that death is not the final condition of a man. It is only a temporary separation. That in fact there is coming a day when body and soul come together again. And this is what is meant by the word resurrection which only Christians use.

The Greeks if they had stood to recite their creed would have said I believe in the immortality of the soul. This spiritual part going on forever. But the Christians when they stood up and said what they believed they said ‘I believe in the resurrection of the body.’

In other words, at some future point after the separation of body and soul the two come together again. That’s what we mean by resurrection and we believe it.

WHY DO WE BELIEVE IN RESURRECTION?

Well first of all because Jesus actually did this for a handful of people. He brought body and soul together again. In some cases a few hours after death. In one case four days after death. But He proved that He had the power to bring body and soul back into relationship with each other, even after the body had been subject to decay and disintegration.

Remember Martha’s practical words when Jesus said ‘Open that grave.’ In the Middle East climate she was perfectly right to say it just isn’t fit to open by this time. She said it in more direct language than that.

And Jesus said Open the tomb. ‘I am the resurrection and the life.’ (John 11:25) I have the power to bring body and soul together even after corruption has set in.

But we supremely believe in this possibility of body and soul being reunited again because of Easter. Because Jesus Himself was reunited three days and three nights after He had said ‘I commit My Spirit into Your hands’. And three days and three nights after His body had been put back in the earth from which it came. Body and spirit reunited.

This is the heart of our Christian faith. And even some Christians find it difficult to believe. And the world finds it impossible.

When He came back from the dead, Jesus said ‘Look I am not a spirit.’ Not any longer. He had been a Spirit for three days and three nights. But He said emphatically after His resurrection I am not a spirit. ‘For a spirit does not have flesh and bones such as you see I have. Come and touch Me.’ (Luke 24:39) And He invited them to prove that He was no longer a spirit.

So that the biggest difference between a Christian and others as they think about life after death. If others do believe in life after death they believe that we survive eternally as spirits. Christians believe that there is coming a day when we will no longer be spirits but once again embodied people. People that have flesh and bones with which they can express themselves. And that makes heaven terribly real. That makes heaven a place incidentally which is why Jesus called it a place and not a state of soul.

And that is why Archbishop William Temple once said ‘Christianity is the most materialistic of all the world religions. It believes in the resurrection of the body. The redemption of our bodies for which we all wait.’

In other words, when God saves a person, He doesn’t just save their spirit; one day He’ll save their body too. The whole lot of them. And make the whole of them what He intended them to be.

Now I come to the subject this morning which may seem a rather long way round to it. But the point that you will have already grasped is this: For Jesus Christ Himself, and for us, there is an interval between death and resurrection. Between the separation of body and spirit and their coming together again there is an interval. Long or short there is an interval. During which we will be disembodied spirits as Jesus was.

And the big question rises: WHAT WILL IT BE LIKE? What will happen to us in the interval? Will we be unconscious or awake? Where will we be? What will we be doing?

Now this is the kind of question I want to tackle this morning. Now the interval for our Lord was three days and three nights. Not a very long interval but it was an interval. And Christians have always been quite sure that it would be a mistake to say that He was in heaven. And one of the phrases in the Apostles’ Creed which most Christians have accepted and used as a fair summary of biblical teaching says: ‘He descended into Hades.’

By the way the word ‘Hell’ was an English alteration and it should never have got in. And it’s one of the most misleading things that could be said.

‘He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, buried, descended into Hades.’ And the word ‘Hades’ is not the word ‘hell’ and shouldn’t be confused with it. It’s not necessarily a bad word or a bad place or a bad state. It is a word that simply means ‘the realm of departed spirits.’ That’s all it means. It means wherever departed spirits are and whatever they are doing, that is what the Bible refers to in the New Testament in the Greek language of Hades, but in the Old Testament in the Hebrew language Sheol, S-H-E-O-L.

And if you read the Revised Standard Version of the Bible which is I think the best we have available, you’ll find that throughout the Old Testament Sheol is the word used, and in the New Testament Hades for the interval between death and resurrection.

And so the Apostles’ Creed states ‘He was suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, buried. He descended into Hades. The third day He rose again, body and spirit reunited, and He ascended into heaven.’

And the word heaven is kept for the bodily resurrected person. And I think it would clarify a lot of our thinking if Christians also kept the word heaven for after the resurrection when we shall have bodies and live in the place that He has prepared for us.

But now come back to Hades.

ARE THERE ANY HINTS AS TO WHAT IT IS LIKE AND WHAT WAS HAPPENING IN HADES WHEN JESUS WENT THERE?

He died, He became a disembodied spirit for three days and three nights. Well now the first clue lies in something He said to a dying thief.

A dying thief said, ‘Lord, remember me in that future day when you get Your kingdom.’ (Luke 23:42) He’s obviously thinking of heaven. He’s thinking of a day way in the future and he believes that Jesus is the Christ and can get people into the kingdom of heaven at the end of history. And he says, Lord, when that happens, could You get me? Could You take me with You into it? Could You remember me?

And our Lord says, I’ll do more than that. I’ll promise you something now, today. Now you see what a wonderful reply it was.

Lord, when You come in Your kingdom in the distant future, whenever it is, could I be in it?

And Jesus said, today I can comfort you with something right now. And this means, of course, that you don’t need to limit the comfort that is given to Christians when they die to things that are in the distant future. You can say some things about the interval which are enough to make them look forward to it.

What Jesus said to the dying thief was: ‘Today we shall be together in paradise.’ (Luke 23:43) He didn’t use the word heaven and our Lord was always careful in His use of words lest He cause misunderstanding. Every word our Lord used counts and He deliberately used the word ‘paradise.’

Now that’s a very interesting word. It’s a Persian word, it means essentially a garden and it means particularly a king’s garden. If you think of the garden outside Buckingham Palace with that high wall round which you may or may not have been in. I haven’t and I don’t suppose most of you have. You may have seen it from the top of a bus and that may be the nearest most of us get to it. But there it is, that is her majesty’s paradise. That’s what the word means. It’s her private garden and anyone can go into it who is invited by the Queen. But you must wait for that invitation. If you walk with her in her garden it is by her invitation, her grace and favour.

And paradise in the Bible which incidentally is also used of the Garden of Eden and pops up again at the end of the Bible in the Garden City, refers to the King’s garden.

Now you notice that the garden is not the palace. The garden is not the Father’s house. The garden is not a place of rooms. And when our Lord talked about ‘His Father’s house’ and ‘many rooms’, He is quite clearly referring not to the interval after death but to the distant future because He said I will come again and then you can come with me to the Father’s house.

But what He’s saying to the thief is this: If I can’t take you now into the Father’s house, I can take you into the king’s garden. And I’ll walk with you in the garden. We’ll be together.

Now that’s one clue that begins to tell us that in a sense the interval is much nearer to the kingdom than we can be here. As it were, one could almost say the three stages like this.

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Stage number one is to be on the top of a bus going through London and catching a glimpse of Buckingham Palace in the distance. That is the life we enjoy here.

Stage two is to get inside the garden nearer still and walk with the King.

And stage three is to get right inside the palace itself into the room reserved for you as a believer. And if you think of it like that you’ll realize that paradise will be very much better than anything we’ve had here. Especially because we shall be walking in such close fellowship with the King.

Now in the olden days and still today in some areas, a palace not only has a private garden where the king walks with his friends, a palace also has a dungeon, a cell, which is not the palace itself; it is a prison.

And it’s very interesting that there are hints, also more than hints in the New Testament that in the interval there is not only a garden but a prison.

One of the most extraordinary statements made which is there in the Bible and on which the Apostles’ Creed builds is a statement by Peter the big fisherman, to the effect that ‘when Jesus died He was dead in the flesh, but alive in the Spirit; and went and preached to the spirits in prison.’ (1 Peter 3:18-19)

And we’re told particularly which ones He went and preached to which is very important. He went and preached to the spirits of those who had been drowned in the flood of Noah. (1 Peter 3:20) Those who deny the historicity of the flood of Noah are left with a problem here, because these are the people Jesus went and preached to between His death and resurrection.

But you notice they are said to be in prison not in the garden. There is this other place. I’ll come back to this strange statement in a moment.

But can you sense already that the Bible is saying that even though heaven and hell are not entered at death but after resurrection and in the future, there is already in the interval a distinguishing between two conditions. Conditions of spirits rather than bodies. And one condition is likened to a garden and the other is likened to a prison. And both belong to the King.

Now it is this picture on which the rest of the New Testament seems to build. It is a picture and we must accept it as a picture and we cannot begin to imagine what either is like in detail or in fact. But if you think of a prison and if you think of a garden you’re getting the right feel of it.

NOW TAKE THE PRISON FIRST because I always prefer to get that out of the way first and then go on to the garden and finish up on a happy note. But let’s take the prison first.

Very little is said. It will be a place of segregation. That is what going to prison means. It’s not the prison diet or anything that happens there. It is that you are shut off. Shut up. That’s the meaning of prison.

Judas will be there. It’s said that when Judas hanged himself, what happened to him, he went to his own place. And this is clearly the place.

Some of the angels will be there, and indeed we’re told twice in the New Testament that God has already put some of the angels in custody until the day of the great trial of both angels and men. There will be many other people there. I think the second thief will be there. The first thief will be in the garden but I think the second will be there.

So that while it is a place of segregation that doesn’t mean there won’t be plenty of people there. It does mean that it will be segregation from God and from God’s people. And whether we understand it or not that’s the worst kind of segregation there can ever be.

Some people in this world are perfectly happy to live without God and to get as far from God’s people as they can. They don’t like Christians and they don’t like the Christ whom they worship. Well quite frankly they will get their dearest wish. Immediately they die. But they will begin to realize just how much they will miss both.

There is also suffering and it would be wrong of me if I didn’t say this. What it is I do not know. It will be mental suffering because in the story I read earlier our Lord clearly indicates that memory will still be active and regret will be one of the most awful things to bear. The regret of knowing that your life is over, that death has sealed your decisions, that your future course is set and that there is really no altering now.

Three things can be said about the prison all of which are definite. First, you cannot go back from that prison to life itself. Our Lord clearly said this.

The second thing we can say definitely is that they cannot go forward to the garden. They are in custody awaiting appearance at court and there is no bail.

Thirdly, they must go forward from that to something else. This is not a permanent condition. It is the interval of waiting.

Now I turn to PARADISE and here we find some lovely things. It is not the palace but the park surrounding the palace. That is how we are to think of it. A step nearer to our heavenly home, much nearer. And there are certain things about this garden which are lovely.

Can I say straight away that in the interval we need not worry about the question where. Being disembodied spirits, spatial relationships, places don’t apply. So to ask where are they is to ask a question that cannot be answered. When we get to the third stage we can begin to talk of a place. I go to prepare a place.

But we are not to think of the garden or the prison as necessarily a spatial place. Disembodied spirits don’t need a place. We are talking about states.

Secondly, I am not sure that we are greatly helped by asking the question what is it like any more than by asking where is it.

But there is one question I find a lot of people are troubled about and some of you have asked me already that I want to answer now.

ARE WE AWAKE OR ASLEEP?

Are we in a kind of Rip Van Winkle state? Asleep over the centuries. It is interesting that his first name is on so many tombstones. Are we in a state of sleeping and unconscious for centuries and then wake up so that in fact after the moment we die the next thing we know is waking up at resurrection?

Or are we in fact conscious?

Now there is no doubt about it that the New Testament has a number of passages in which the dead are said to be asleep, fallen asleep, asleep in the Lord. This is a phrase that is used a number of times.

But the point I want to make is this: Souls, spirits, cannot sleep. Sleep is a physical function. Only bodies can sleep. And therefore the phrase fallen asleep, I am quite sure, refers to the appearance of the body. Physically a person is asleep when they are dead. It is their appearance, it is a very good word to describe their condition. It also carries the possibility of the body being woken up.

But I think we’re on very thin ice if we start applying the word sleep to spirits as well as to bodies and believe in what is called soul sleep. The Seventh-day Adventists believe this and so do a number of other cults. But I can’t see it justified.

On the contrary, Paul says, ‘whether we wake or sleep, we live with Him.’ (1 Thessalonians 5:10) I don’t think Paul would have said that if it was unconscious.

The real question about the interval is this: Not where is it, not what is it, but who? Who? And the glorious thing to which Christians look forward here is this: ‘we shall be with Christ.’ Now if I’m unconscious that doesn’t attract me one bit. I would say that’s a good deal worse than being here because here I can be conscious and speak to Christ. To be unconscious for centuries, even if I’m with Christ, that is not good news. No one would ever have said I long to depart and be with Christ if they were looking forward to centuries of unconscious fellowship.

It’s quite clear that the emphasis of the New Testament is on conscious fellowship. And the spirit can be conscious apart from the body. Paul says in one point that one day he went to heaven. During his lifetime he went to heaven, paid a visit. And he said this, ‘whether in the body or out of the body I don’t know.’ (2 Corinthians 12:3) The point he’s making is you can be conscious out of the body. Indeed you are.

And so I believe that we look forward to conscious fellowship with Christ. Only with Christ? No, much more. With all Christ’s people. Whether they live before or after His day, His people will be with them.

Now we’ll be with Abraham. Did you ever realize that Abraham was a Christian? He is.

‘Abraham rejoiced to see My day’, said Jesus, ‘and he was glad’ (John 8:56), and a man who rejoices to see Jesus’ day is a Christian.

And when Lazarus, that beggar died, he found himself sitting next to Abraham in the garden. We shall meet Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all of the men of faith of the Old Testament and all the people of faith since the New Testament. We shall be with Christians, with Christ’s people. It’s the king’s garden party.

And the third thing is We Shall Be With Angels. I know this, that whether you go to the prison or the garden, you’ll believe in angels the first five minutes after you die if you’ve never believed in them before. You’ll meet them.

And one of the loveliest thoughts to me is this, that even if you die alone, unwanted, uncared for, with nobody there to help you, God has angels waiting just the other side to care for you. His servants, the palace staff, are waiting in the garden. And Lazarus died, didn’t even have a funeral, he was a beggar, nobody cared for him, and the angels took him to Abraham. We shall be with Christ, we shall be with Christians, we shall be with the angels.

No wonder that Paul said, even though I’m going to be unclosed for the interval, disembodied without this flesh and bones, even so, I would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. That is why Paul said when he faced certain death, I long to depart. He said, I know I’d like to stay to help you, but I long to depart for my own sake, I’m ready to be off. I long to depart and be with Christ, paradise to the Christian.

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A great saint was asked this question, ‘What do you most look forward to as a Christian?’ And after a moment’s thought he said, ‘The first five minutes after death, he’d understood his Bible, he knew the truth, and he honestly meant just that.’

We’re going to sing a hymn now and then in five minutes I’m going to answer some of the questions that I’ve been asked about the interval.

This series, there will be a question session in the morning in which I’ll answer questions direct from the congregation. But this morning, just to get you used to the idea and the sense of questions being answered from the pulpit, I have written down six questions that I have been asked over the years about the interval between death and resurrection, and I’ll answer them briefly.

The first question: WHAT DECIDES WHETHER WE GO TO PRISON OR PARADISE IN THE INTERVAL?

Now I’m going to be speaking in a fortnight’s time on judgment and the answer is really the same thing that decides your ultimate destiny, decides the intermediate destiny.

And in a sentence, those who have never heard of Christ will be judged as to whether they have lived up to the light they have received through conscience, creation, and other ways. Those who have heard of Christ will be judged by their response to Him. And both these things happen in this life rather than in the interval.

And in fact, what we do in this life decides not only the third stage, but the second. So come in a fortnight’s time for a full answer to that one.

Second question, IS THERE A SECOND CHANCE?

Now this is a question that many people ask, more and more people today believe that there is. May I say that the only hint I can find in the Bible anywhere for a second chance for anyone is the passage in Peter about those who were prematurely judged and drowned in the days of Noah. For the rest, the evidence in the Scripture is overwhelmingly against any possibility of a second chance. There is a great gulf fixed and death would seem to be the end of choosing. It’s a thing that one dare not gamble with or risk.

Third question, WHAT ABOUT PURGATORY?

Now the Roman Catholics have added a number of details or compartments if you like to the interval between death and resurrection. They have taught such places for example as Limbus in Phantoms. Limbo for short where unbaptized babies go and various other things.

And one of the places they do believe in is purgatory. Now this place is a place for two purposes in their teaching. First, it is a place where we pay for our own sins unless they have been forgiven here. Therefore it is a place of punishment.

Secondly, it is a place of purging or cleansing where those who die before they are saintly enough to enter heaven may gradually be put into a condition to do so. In other words, there are two sorts of saints who die. Saints who are perfect and ready for heaven and they are canonized and called saints so and so. And those who are not ready which means most of us who must go to this further school as it were. In other words, those who believe in Jesus but are not yet saintly enough to live in heaven itself.

It is because of this belief in purgatory that certain other practices and beliefs get such a grip of people who believe in it. Practices and beliefs such as message for the dead, indulgences, penance and so on. They are all related to this one belief in purgatory.

And I can only state that nowhere in the entire Bible can I find a single trace of the idea of purgatory. And indeed there are three reasons why in fact it seems to me impossible that there should be such a place.

First, Jesus was punished for all my sins. Why then have I to be? That seems to me conclusive.

Second, when I die physically that will set me free from this body of sin and death. I am finished with sin, I’m finished with Satan, I’m finished with temptation. You can’t tempt a corpse. And it is through this body of sin and flesh that Satan gets hold of me one way or another. Whether it’s the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh or the pride of life. It is all connected with life in this body.

And thirdly, if my physical death sets me free from all sin. When Christ comes again I know I will be like Him for I shall see Him as He is. (1 John 3:2) And I shall be like Him and therefore there is no need for this school of cleansing.

And therefore starting from the Bible I cannot accept the idea of purgatory at all.

Fourth question, IS IT ALL RIGHT TO PRAY FOR THE DEAD?

Now this is a very real issue today because the Church of England has recently brought out a service in which prayers for the dead are included. And it has become an increasing practice to do this. The official order of service brought out jointly by Roman Catholics, Anglicans and the Free Church Council. This last November the 11th included prayers for those who died in the two world wars for them.

Now what do we think about this? It’s quite obvious that if you’ve been praying for someone for years and years that you can’t just stop. It’s quite obvious that you go on thinking about people who have died and talking about them. And it’s quite obvious that since you share everything with the Lord you will go on talking about those who have died to Christ.

And there is nothing in Scripture to suggest that we should not talk about those who have died in our prayers. But that is a very different thing from praying for them. Because if somebody says I want to pray for someone who has died, my question will be, what are you going to pray for them? What need do you think they have that your prayer will help?

And when that question is answered we begin to realize that prayers for the dead are useless. If a person is not saved by the time they are dead, there is that great gulf fixed. And if they are saved then it is an act of unbelief to ask Jesus to look after them. He has promised to do so. And we can be absolutely confident that everything we would wish for our loved ones that is right and good, Jesus is already giving to them. There is no need to ask Him to do so. He has promised to look after us completely from the moment we die.

And therefore prayers for the dead are rightly not practiced by those who accept the Bible’s promises. It is those who are unsure of life after death who will pray for the dead.

There is no Bible example or exhortation of praying for the dead and it is remarkable to me that in a book that is constantly telling us to pray for the living, never once tells us to pray for the dead.

There is only one mention of a prayer for the dead in the Bible and that’s in a writing rather and that is in the second book of Maccabees which is in the Apocrypha which is not in the Bible but which is as you know in the Roman Bible.

Fifth question, DO THE DEAD WATCH US AND CAN THEY PRAY FOR US?

Well Hebrews 12 does talk about a great cloud of witnesses around us. It’s a little ambiguous as to whether it means they are watching us or looking at Jesus. And it’s ambiguous as to whether it means we should draw inspiration from them or intercession.

I would feel inclined though I can’t be dogmatic to say that they are therefore our inspiration rather than intercession. Once you believe that the dead pray for us it is a short step to offering prayers to the dead not just for them and prayers to the saints.

Rather we are to believe in the communion of saints. Christ has two hands with one hand He holds those of us on earth, with the other hand He holds those who have lived and died in His faith and fear. And our communion is through Him rather than direct. And when we have the communion service we enjoy the communion of saints and mystic sweet communion with those whose rest is one.

Final question, CAN WE COMMUNICATE WITH THE DEAD?

Come on Thursday evening I’m going to deal with spiritualism then. But the answer in a nutshell is the Bible absolutely forbids God’s people ever to attempt to try and communicate with the dead. On Thursday I’ll tell you why.