We Got Mail

Colleen Tinker, Feature, Letters to the Editor

Who lied: God or Satan?

Thanks for your email in which you told me more of your understanding about life and death.

You started with, “I believe that when believers die, they go immediately into the presence of the Lord. They are in what theologians call ‘the intermediate state’, and no one knows any details about that state because Scripture does not describe it physically.” 

You ended with, “I hope this helps!”

And I have to kindly say, that, no it doesn’t help me understand. Aren’t your beliefs directly counter to plain Biblical statements?

Ecclesiastes 9:5: “For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.”

Ezekiel 18:14: “Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sins, it shall die.”

Be that as it may, there is one more vital question dealing with the Garden of Eden:

Genesis 2:16, 17: And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”

And the serpent said unto the woman, “you will not surely die.”

My question is, who lied ,and who told the truth?

—VIA EMAIL

Response: We cannot form our view of the nature of man and of death from the Old Testament alone. As Paul said, 

Therefore do not be ashamed of either the witness about our Lord or me His prisoner, but join with [me] in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus from all eternity, but now has been manifested by the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel,—2 Timothy 1:8–10 LSB

The account in Genesis reveals that God specifically told Adam that if he ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, he would die THAT DAY:

And Yahweh God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may surely eat; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat from it; for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”—Genesis 2:116, 17 LSB

God said they would die that same day. If they didn’t die, then God tricked them or deceived them—lied to them. The day they ate from that tree, they DID die: they died spiritually. Immediately they knew shame: they were naked and ashamed; they were afraid, they hid and blamed each other, the snake, and God Himself for their sin. They did not repent or acknowledge their own sin. 

This spiritual death is what all of us inherit. As Paul says:

And you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all also formerly conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.—Ephesians 2:1–3 LSB

Paul is not using a metaphor here; he is speaking the absolute truth. Adam’s immaterial spirit died the moment he ate that fruit, and all who are born in Adam (everyone except Jesus) are born dead in sin. This is not a statement of physical fact or a metaphor; it is literal truth. We are born dead in sin by nature, condemned, and the wrath of God remains on us until we believe in the Lord Jesus (John 3:18, 36). 

Adventism taught us we have no spirit but our breath. Scripture reveals differently. We have an identity that is not our bodies, an identity that survives death (2 Cor. 5:1–9). Even in the OT, when the patriarchs died, they were “gathered to their fathers”, and then they were buried. When Jesus raised Jairus’s daughter, when He called her, her spirit returned, and she sat up (Luke 9). 

Jesus told His followers to follow him, and when one asked to be allowed to go and bury his father first, Jesus replied, 

But He said to him, “Allow the dead to bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim everywhere the kingdom of God.”—Luke 9:60 LSB

Jesus wasn’t speaking metaphorically; he was referring to the spiritually dead, those who did not BELIEVE and trust God and the Son of God. 

Satan clearly lied to Eve. She and Adam absolutely died the day they ate, and we have all inherited the death Adam brought into the world that day. Eternal death is not annihilation; it is an eternal continuation of the spiritual death into which we all are born—but without the seeking, drawing power of God calling people to Himself. Eternal death is eternally existing without LIFE—the life that Jesus brought to us by shattering our curse of death when he rose. That LIFE is not merely physical; it is spiritual as well. John said that to all who believe is given the right to be born of God (John 1:12).

Unless we are born of God through faith in Jesus’ finished work, we remain dead in our sins, literally. The difference between the saved and the lost is belief. Either one is spiritually dead or spiritually alive by faith in the Son of God. There is no middle ground, and there is nothing we can do except to trust God and His word and BEIEVE. God gives us the faith to believe.

Here is an article that will help unpack the Adventist view of the nature of man:

Are Humans More Than Living Bodies?

Where Did OT Believers Go?

A strange question has popped into my mind. I learned, a while back, that my son is not sleeping in the grave, but that his spirit went to God when he died. 

I know that Jesus is the only way to heaven, and that the cross and resurrection make that possible.

Soooo—what happened to believers in God who died before the cross?

—VIA EMAIL

Response: That is a good question. Were not told a lot about what happened to believers before the cross, but the Old Testament repeatedly says that they died and were “gathered to their fathers”. There was a Jewish tradition which Jesus mentioned in His parable about Lazarus and the rich man in Luke 16:

“Now it happened that the poor man died and was carried away by the angels to Abraham’s bosom, and the rich man also died and was buried.”—Luke 16:22 LSB

The beggar, who had apparently been a righteous man, was carried to Abraham’s bosom, and the rich man who was selfish and cruel to the poor, died and was buried. No “soul destination” was given. Since Jesus Himself is the One who tells this story, we can’t write it off, as Adventists do, as “just a parable” using cultural motifs to make a point about supporting the poor! As our pastor said, Jesus would never use an untruth to teach a truth!

After Jesus rose from death and opened a new and living way to the Father through His body (Heb. 10:20), never again did the Bible speak of being “gathered to their fathers” or of Abraham’s bosom. A new, direct access to the Father has been opened. Both we who are born again and the dead in Christ have direct access to God through Christ’s blood now. Many people think that when the Lord Jesus rose from death, those who had been “in the bosom of Abraham” or with their fathers were brought into the presence of God directly because Jesus had fulfilled God’s demand for propitiation. 

There is no absolute proof of this in Scripture, but the wording of the Old Testament compared with the New Testament and using the “bosom of Abraham” as an identifying mark of “where” the righteous dead went have caused many Christians to conclude that those believers were granted access to the Father when Jesus ascended to heaven. 

I tend to believe that this scenario is at least close to what has happened. I can’t say for sure, but we do know that even God the Son referred to Abraham’s bosom as the place where the righteous man went when he died. Abraham is considered the father of believers, and Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are those to whom Paul and the gospels refers throughout the NT when they speak of “the fathers”, 

I’m sorry I can’t be definitive, but I hope this helps. †

 

Colleen Tinker
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