Death, Sheol, and Resurrection  - Posted:  01/10/2010

"Dust thou art to dust thou returnest!"  -   is quite a final judgment on man's biological body!  Such, however, was not said of the spirit-soul! 

By  Dr. Isabelo S. Alcordo, Ph.D.

          I.  Death as Consequence of Sin of Disobedience.  In the very beginning, man was body with the pristine spiritual image of God called the soul - the image of God as Mind. The fact that pristine man needed material food like all the animals meant that the material body of pristine man was subject to die, when deprived of food, just like all the animals. The continuous physiological process of digestion would lead to deterioration and aging of the biological body and, in time, to death. To prevent this eventuality, God placed “the tree of life” at the center of God’s garden where He placed man for man to partake of at such time that God alone would determine in order for man to have eternal life.

          But also in the garden was the tree of knowledge of good and evil which God warned man not to eat of it for when he did, he would surely die.

Ge 2:8-9:  Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. 9 And the Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground — trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

          Enticed by Satan, speaking through a serpent, by a lie that “You will not surely die” but that “You will be like God, knowing good and evil,” the woman ate of the forbidden tree and gave some to the man who also ate some.  The consequence of such disobedience, which man was fully warned of, was like a death sentence when God closed man’s access to the tree of life.  Thus, through the sin of one man, death entered into the world.

Ge 3:19: “By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”

Ge 3:22-24: “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” 23 So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. 24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.”

Ro 5:12-14:  Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned— 13 for before the law was given, sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law. 14 Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come.

          2.  Man’s Death - Return of His Biological Body to Dust.  Without any faith in some spiritual revelation, atheistic man is forced to conclude that he is just one among the many animals and dies just like any other animal. Just as deceased animals may continue to live in the memories of their owners, so does man or woman live in the memories of those who loved him or her. Nothing more! Any thought of some “immortal something” that is supposed to survive death is just wishful thinking. Such an idea appears to be rooted in the Israelite consciousness. If we consider only the following Old Testament (OT) verses, it becomes understandable that resurrection to the minds of the Jews or in Judaism is either a fable or must necessarily be the resurrection of the earthly biological body. 

Ge 3:19: “By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”

Ge 18:27-28:  Then Abraham spoke up again: “Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, though I am nothing but dust and ashes, 28 what if the number of the righteous is five less than fifty? Will you destroy the whole city because of five people?”

Job 10:8-22:  “Your hands shaped me and made me. Will you now turn and destroy me? 9 Remember that you molded me like clay.  Will you now turn me to dust again? 10 Did you not pour me out like milk and curdle me like cheese, 11 clothe me with skin and flesh and knit me together with bones and sinews? 12 You gave me life and showed me kindness, and in your providence watched over my spirit (life-breath) . . .  18 Why then did you bring me out of the womb? I wish I had died before any eye saw me. 19 If only I had never come into being, or had been carried straight from the womb to the grave!  20 Are not my few days almost over? Turn away from me so I can have a moment's joy 21 before I go to the place of no return, to the land of gloom and deep shadow,  22 to the land of deepest night, of deep shadow and disorder, where even the light is like darkness.”
       
Job 34:14-15:  If it were his intention and he withdrew his spirit and breath (both refer to the same life-breath), 15 all mankind would perish together and man would return to the dust. 

Ps 22:15:  My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth; you lay me in the dust of death.

Ps 22:27-23:1:  All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations will bow down before him, 28 for dominion belongs to the Lord and he rules over the nations. 29 All the rich of the earth will feast and worship; all who go down to the dust will kneel before him — those who cannot keep themselves alive.  30 Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord. 31 They will proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn —  for he has done it.

Ps 90:3-6:  3 You turn men back to dust, saying, “Return to dust, O sons of men.” 4 For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night. 5 You sweep men away in the sleep of death; they are like the new grass of the morning —  6 though in the morning it springs up new, by evening it is dry and withered.

Ps 104:29:  When you hide your face, they are terrified; when you take away their breath, they die and return to the dust.

Ps 146:3-4:  Do not put your trust in princes, in mortal men, who cannot save. 4 When their spirit (life-breath) departs, they return to the ground; on that very day their plans come to nothing.

Ecc 3:18-20:  I also thought, “As for men, God tests them so that they may see that they are like the animals. 19 Man's fate is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath; man has no advantage over the animal.  Everything is meaningless. 20 All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return.”

Ecc 12:6-7:  Remember him — before the silver cord is severed, or the golden bowl is broken; before the pitcher is shattered at the spring, or the wheel broken at the well, 7 and the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit (life breath) returns to God who gave it.

          3.  Spirit of Sin and “Death” of the Soul in Living Man.  However, as was discussed in the doctrine on the nature of man, Biblical revelations have shown us that of all the animals, only man was “created in the image of God, in the likeness of God.” That image is “the image of God as mind” which interacts with the brain and guides its evolution and is known as the “soul.”  The soul is the spiritual seat of man’s intellect, emotions, and memories, hence it is the   “spiritual person” in man - as God intended in the very beginning - which only God can destroy. It is man’s consciousness of God and of himself, untainted.  It was also to the soul, the unseen man (2 Co 4:16-18), that God said in  Ge 2:17: “. . . but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.” 

2 Co 4:16-18:  Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17 For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

          From God’s point of view the “death of the soul,” while still in the living body of the first man, came about when it became dominated by another spirit that God allowed to be formed or to dwell in man - the human spirit or the “spirit of sin” - to mark man’s disobedience to His commandment, to mark man’s “original sin” which was inherited in all generations thereafter which, in time, cut off the communication between man’s soul and God. This human spirit which is not of God but of man exerts its influence on the human heart for it is the seat or source of man’s desire and will and is not only deaf to the voice of God but often work against God’s will.

Zec 12:1-2:  “The Lord, who stretches out the heavens, who lays the foundation of the earth, and who forms the spirit of man within him, declares: . . .”

Ge 6:5-8:  The Lord saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. 6 The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. 7 So the Lord said, "I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth — men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air — for I am grieved that I have made them." 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.

Ecc 9:3-6:  This is the evil in everything that happens under the sun: The same destiny overtakes all. The hearts of men, moreover, are full of evil and there is madness in their hearts while they live, and afterward they join the dead. 4 Anyone who is among the living has hope—even a live dog is better off than a dead lion!

Jas 4:1-6:  What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. 4 You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. 5 Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely? 

          It is this human spirit that Jesus said needed to die and be born again under the leading of the Holy Spirit if the whole man is to learn to align his will to the Will of God the Father and to open his soul once again to the loving and guiding voice of the Holy Spirit while still in the flesh. Until this loving communication between the soul and God is fully reestablished, the soul from God’s perspective is dead . . . but not yet totally lost! Jesus, in response to one of His followers to allow him to go to bury his dead father, established this truth very emphatically in Matthew 8:21-22.

Mt 8:21-22:  Another disciple said to him, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”  22 But Jesus told him, “Follow me, and let the (dead in soul) dead bury their own (dead in body) dead.”

Jn 3:5-8: “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7 You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’”

Ps 51:17:  The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. Ps 73:21-22:  When my heart was grieved and my spirit embittered,  22 I was senseless and ignorant; I was a brute beast before you.

Pr 20:27:  The lamp of the Lord searches the spirit of a man; it searches out his inmost being. Ps 51:10-12:  Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. 11 Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

          4.  “Death” of Man’s Spirit-Soul upon Physical Death.  To recapitulate, from Biblical theology and Christian perspective, the whole being of man consists of body, soul, and spirit much like  God who is Triune - Son, Holy Spirit, Father.  The willful, envious, and covetous (human) spirit encases the soul, like the bone encasing the bone marrow, both having become “an integral spiritual component of man,”which can be split apart only by the word of God, encased in a physical body. Upon the death of the physical body, the spirit-soul is not annihilated but separates from the body but remained defined in the form of man’s physical body and enters into a “state of death” in the land of the dead called sheol, pit, or hell. Having this in mind, it is not inappropriate to speak of spiritual death either as the “death of the soul” or the “death of the spirit” of man.

Dt 6:4-6: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.  5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart (human spirit) and with all your soul (human mind) and with all your strength (body).”

Heb 4:12-13: For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. 13 Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight.

1 Th 5:23-24:  May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.

Pr 23:13-14:  Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you punish him with the rod, he will not die.  14 Punish him with the rod and save his soul from death.

Eze 18:20:  The soul who sins is the one who will die. The son will not share the guilt of the father, nor will the father share the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous man will be credited to him, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against him.

Mt 10:28:  Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

Mt 16:26-27:  What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?

          5.  Place of the Spirit-Soul of the Dead - Old Testament Writings.  Dust is the metaphor for the earthly grave. When man stops breathing and the impersonal life-breath (spirit) that quickens the physical body returns to God the material body dies and, in time, turns back to dust. But what happens to the spirit-soul, the conscious, spiritual component of man? 

          According to the Old Testament (OT), “human consciousness” - spirit-soul - does not return to God but go into a state of death in a place called Sheol  - the Jewish abode of the spirit-soul of the dead and is equivalent to the Greek Haides or Hades. The OT sometimes translates it as hell or pit. The location of this is suggested to be under the earth or below the ground or under the sea or wherever the dead body was laid. But wherever it is, it refers to the unseen world - a world of darkness, silence, oblivion, destruction, disorder, decaying forms, a land of gloom and deep shadow, a land of deepest night, of deep shadow and disorder where even the light is like darkness  -  the opposite or antithesis of the living world. Job declared it as a place of no return.

Job 10:19-22:  If only I had never come into being, or had been carried straight from the womb to the grave! 20 Are not my few days almost over? Turn away from me so I can have a moment's joy 21 before I go to the place of no return, to the land of gloom and deep shadow, 22 to the land of deepest night, of deep shadow and disorder, where even the light is like darkness.

Job 16:19-22:  Even now my witness is in heaven; my advocate is on high. 20 My intercessor is my friend as my eyes pour out tears to God;  21 on behalf of a man he pleads with God as a man pleads for his friend. 22 Only a few years will pass before I go on the journey of no return.

Ps 39:12-13:  Hear my prayer, O Lord, listen to my cry for help; be not deaf to my weeping. For I dwell with you as an alien, a stranger, as all my fathers were. 13 Look away from me, that I may rejoice again before I depart and am no more.

Ps 49:13-14:  This is the fate of those who trust in themselves, and of their followers, who approve their sayings. Selah 4 Like sheep they are destined for the grave, and death will feed on them. The upright will rule over them in the morning; their forms will decay in the grave, far from their princely mansions.

Ps 49:13-15:  This is the way of those who are foolish, And of those after them who approve their words. Selah. 14 As sheep they are appointed for Sheol; Death shall be their shepherd; And the upright shall rule over them in the morning, And their form shall be for Sheol to consume So that they have no habitation. 15 But God will redeem my soul from the power of Sheol, For He will receive me. Selah (NASU).

Ps 88:9-12:  I call to you, O Lord, every day; I spread out my hands to you. 10 Do you show your wonders to the dead? Do those who are dead rise up and praise you? Selah 11 Is your love declared in the grave, your faithfulness in Destruction? 12 Are your wonders known in the place of darkness, or your righteous deeds in the land of oblivion?

Ps 94:17:  Unless the Lord had given me help, I would soon have dwelt in the silence of death.   Ps 115:17-18:  It is not the dead who praise the Lord, those who go down to silence; 18 it is we who extol the Lord, both now and forevermore.

          6.  State of Death of the Spirit-Soul - Old Testament Writings.  In death, the body returns to dust from which its was taken which was not the same for the spirit-soul.  “Dust thou art to dust thou returnest was not spoken of the soul” is a Biblical truth. Despite separation from the physical body the spirit-soul initially remains defined in the form of his human body but is also subject to decay  as it goes into a state of sleep, of semi-consciousness or slumbrous state.  Whatever remains of the form of the spirit-soul, it retains its state of enfeebled existence from which in a partial way the spirit might temporarily be aroused by the living, by mediums and spirits, as was done to the spirit-soul of the prophet Samuel (1 Sa 28:11-15).   

          Also,  whatever is the state of the spirit-soul of man in Sheol, righteous or wicked, until God has destroyed that spirit-soul, that spirit-soul is alive to God in the sense that God is able to call that spirit-soul to appear before Him anytime He wishes - in the same manner that we bring to mind things that we may have set aside and temporarily forgotten - for Sheol is not beyond the reach of God.


Dt 18:10-12;  Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, 11 or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead.

1 Sa 28:7-14:  Saul then said to his attendants, “Find me a woman who is a medium, so I may go and inquire of her.” “There is one in Endor,” they said. 8 So Saul disguised himself, putting on other clothes, and at night he and two men went to the woman. “Consult a spirit for me” he said, “and bring up for me the one I name.” 9 But the woman said to him, “Surely you know what Saul has done. He has cut off the mediums and spiritists from the land. Why have you set a trap for my life to bring about my death?”10 Saul swore to her by the Lord, “As surely as the Lord lives, you will not be punished for this.” 11 Then the woman asked, “Whom shall I bring up for you?” “Bring up Samuel,” he said. 12 When the woman saw Samuel, she cried out at the top of her voice and said to Saul, “Why have you deceived me? You are Saul!” 13 The king said to her, “Don't be afraid. What do you see?”  The woman said, “I see a spirit coming up out of the ground.” 14 “What does he look like?” he asked. “An old man wearing a robe is coming up,” she said. Then Saul knew it was Samuel, and he bowed down and prostrated himself with his face to the ground.

Ps 7:3-5:  O Lord my God, if I have done this and there is guilt on my hands —  4 if I have done evil to him who is at peace with me or without cause have robbed my foe —  5 then let my enemy pursue and overtake me;  let him trample my life to the ground and make me sleep in the dust.

Ps 13:3-4:  Look on me and answer, O Lord my God. Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death; 4 my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,” and my foes will rejoice when I fall.

Ps 90:5-6:  You sweep men away in the sleep of death; they are like the new grass of the morning —  6 though in the morning it springs up new, by evening it is dry and withered.

Job 3:17-19:  There the wicked cease from turmoil, and there the weary are at rest. 18 Captives also enjoy their ease; they no longer hear the slave driver's shout. 19 The small and the great are there, and the slave is freed from his master.

          Job declared that men who sleep in death will not awake or be roused from their sleep.  God declared this “sleep of death” to be eternal or forever for the leaders of Babylon when He declared the destruction of the city.  In the later period, however, Daniel declared the awakening of the spirit-souls of the dead from their grave.

Jer 51:39-40: “But while they are aroused, I will set out a feast for them and make them drunk, so that they shout with laughter —  then sleep forever and not awake,” declares the Lord.  40 “I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, like rams and goats.”

Jer 51:57: “I will make her officials and wise men drunk, her governors, officers and warriors as well; they will sleep forever and not awake,” declares the King, whose name is the Lord Almighty.
 
Job 14:11: As water disappears from the sea or a riverbed becomes parched and dry, 12 so man lies down and does not rise; till the heavens are no more, men will not awake or be roused from their sleep.

Da 12:2-4:  Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt. 3 Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever.    

          7.  Resurrection - The Raising of the Spirit-Soul from Death to Life.  The question that we must first answer in relation to resurrection is what is to be raised from the dead to life? All Christian churches today believe that since it was the physical or the biological body that died in the Garden of Eden due to the sin of Adam and Eve, it must also be the physical or biological body that needs to be resurrected by the power of God. But is this true?  Did not the “pristine soul” - the true image or likeness of God  which allowed for perfect communication between God and sinless flesh - also “died” upon being “contaminated” by the envious, covetous, and willful “human spirit” which God allowed to be formed or dwell and eventually dominated the “human soul”? If this is not true, what led Cain to murder his own brother Abel?  Or how then did evil flourish upon the earth so fast after the fall?  Is not the unseen more real and eternal than what is seen?  Is not the spirit-soul more important to God than the biological body whose very nature is mortal and whose mortality also leads to the “state of death” of the spirit-soul? From my study, I conclude that what is in need of resurrection - which is an accomplished fact for the dead prior to Christ Jesus' PAROUSIA sometime in AD 7o and on-going for the living - is that of the spirit-soul of man defined in his human form at death consisting of spiritual substance, whatever that is, and not his biological body.

2 Co 4:16-18:  Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17 For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

Ge 4:6-8:  Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? 7 If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.”  8 Now Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let's go out to the field.” And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.

Ge 6:5-7:  The Lord saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. 6 The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. 7 So the Lord said, "I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth — men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air — for I am grieved that I have made them." 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. 
       

Job 26:5-6:  “The ghosts of the dead tremble beneath the water, with its creatures. 6 Sh’ol is naked before him; Abaddon (destruction) lies uncovered. (CJB)

Job 26:5-6: “The dead are in deep anguish, those beneath the waters and all that live in them.  6 Death is naked before God; Destruction lies uncovered.

Ps 139:7-8:  Where can I go to escape your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? 8 If I climb up to heaven, you are there; if I lie down in Sh’ol, you are there.  (CJB)

Ps 139:7-8:  Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? 8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
  
Dt 32:21-22:  They made me jealous by what is no god and angered me with their worthless idols. I will make them envious by those who are not a people; I will make them angry by a nation that has no understanding. 22 For a fire has been kindled by my wrath, one that burns to the realm of death (Sheol - Tanakh) below.

Eze 18:21-23: “But if a wicked man turns away from all the sins he has committed and keeps all my decrees and does what is just and right, he will surely live; he will not die. 22 None of the offenses he has committed will be remembered against him. Because of the righteous things he has done, he will live. 23 Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign Lord. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?”

Eze 33:10-11: “Son of man, say to the house of Israel, ‘This is what you are saying: “Our offenses and sins weigh us down, and we are wasting away because of them. How then can we live?”’  11 Say to them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, O house of Israel?’”
NIV
 
Lk 20:34-38: “The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. 35 But those who are considered worthy of taking part in that age and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, 36 and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God's children, since they are children of the resurrection. 37 But in the account of the bush, even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord 'the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.'  38 He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.”

Jn 11:21-26: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.” 23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”  24 Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”  25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; 26 and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

Heb 9:27-28:  Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, 28 so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.

Jn 5:25-27: “I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. 26 For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself. 27 And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man.”

Jn 5:28-30: “Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice 29 and come out — those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned. 30 By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.”
 

END