LAZARUS—A MAN DEAD FOR FOUR DAYS
What happened to Lazarus, who was dead for four days, helps us to understand the condition of the dead. Jesus had told his disciples: “Lazarus our friend has gone to rest, but I am journeying there to awaken him from sleep.” However, the disciples replied: “Lord, if he has gone to rest, he will get well.” At that, Jesus told them plainly: “Lazarus has died.” Why did Jesus say Lazarus was sleeping when really he had died? Let us see.
When Jesus got near the village where Lazarus had lived, he was met by Martha, the sister of Lazarus. Soon they, along with many others, went to the tomb where Lazarus had been put. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said: “Take the stone away.” Since Lazarus had been dead for four days, Martha protested: “Lord, by now he must smell.” But the stone was removed, and Jesus called out: “Lazarus, come on out!” And he did! He came out alive, still wrapped in graveclothes. “Loose him and let him go,” Jesus said.—John 11:11-44.
Now think about this: What was Lazarus’ condition during those four days he was dead? Had he been in heaven? He was a good man. Yet Lazarus did not say anything about being in heaven, which surely he would have done if he had been there. No, Lazarus was really dead, even as Jesus said he was. Then why did Jesus at first tell his disciples that Lazarus was only sleeping?
Well, Jesus knew that the dead Lazarus was unconscious, as the Bible says: “The dead . . . are conscious of nothing at all.” (Ecclesiastes 9:5) But a living person can be awakened from a deep sleep. So Jesus was going to show that, by means of God’s power given to him, his friend Lazarus could be awakened from death.
When a person is in a very deep sleep, he remembers nothing. It is similar with the dead. They have no feelings at all. They no longer exist. But, in God’s due time, the dead who are ransomed by God will be raised to life. (John 5:28) Surely this knowledge should move us to want to win God’s favor. If we do, even if we should die, we will be remembered by God and be brought back to life.—1 Thessalonians 4:13, 14.
THE SOUL DIES
Some persons have said that what makes man different from the animals is that man has a soul but the animals do not. However, Genesis 1:20 and 30 says that God created “living souls” to live in the waters, and that the animals have “life as a soul.” In these verses some Bibles use the words “creature” and “life” instead of “soul,” but their marginal readings agree that the word “soul” is what appears in the original language. Among the Bible references to animals as souls is Numbers 31:28. There it speaks of “one soul out of five hundred, of humankind and of the herd and of the asses and of the flock.”
Since animals are souls, when they die their souls die. As the Bible says: “Every living soul died, yes, the things in the sea.” (Revelation 16:3) What about human souls? As we learned in the previous chapter, God did not create man with a soul. Man is a soul. So, as we would expect, when man dies, his soul dies. Over and over again the Bible says that this is true. Never does the Bible say the soul is deathless or that it cannot die. “All those going down to the dust will bend down, and no one will ever preserve his own soul alive,” Psalm 22:29 says. “The soul that is sinning—it itself will die,” explains Ezekiel 18:4 and 20. And if you turn to Joshua 10:28-39, you will find seven places where the soul is spoken of as being killed or destroyed.
8 In a prophecy about Jesus Christ, the Bible says: “He poured out his soul to the very death . . . and he himself carried the very sin of many people.” (Isaiah 53:12) The teaching of the ransom proves it was a soul (Adam) that sinned, and that in order to ransom humans there had to be a corresponding soul (a man) sacrificed. Christ, by ‘pouring out his soul unto death,’ provided the ransom price. Jesus, the human soul, died. As we have seen, the “spirit” is something different from our soul. The spirit is our life-force. This life-force is in each of the body cells of both humans and animals. It is sustained, or kept alive, by breathing. What does it mean, then, when the Bible says that at death “the dust returns to the earth . . . and the spirit itself returns to the true God who gave it”? (Ecclesiastes 12:7) At death the life-force in time leaves all the body cells and the body begins to decay. But this does not mean that our life-force literally leaves the earth and travels through space to God. Rather, the spirit returns to God in the sense that now our hope for future life rests entirely with God. Only by his power can the spirit, or life-force, be given back so that we live again.—Psalm 104:29, 30.