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Originally posted by \o/\o/
The Return of the Spirit of God by J.N. Andrews
"Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was; and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it." Ecc.12:7.
This text is the exact counterpart of Gen.2:7: "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul."
One text teaches how man was first formed. The other text makes known the process of his dissolution. What God did in creating, death undoes by dissolving. How did death get the power to step in and undo the Creator’s work? Man forfeited his right to live by sinning against God. Death entered by sin. Rom.5:12. Death, then, has an evil parentage. In fact, it has a bad character in the book of God; it is not a friend, but an enemy; and so serious and formidable a foe is it that its destruction is made the subject of special promise to the people of God. 1Cor.15:26. The power of death Satan himself has controlled. Heb.2:14. Death came from the devil, just as life came from God.
One of the principal proofs that men reach Heaven by dying, is found in our text which is so often quoted: "The spirit shall return unto God who gave it." Does this prove that death ushers men into Heaven? Please consider before you answer. If so, please observe that this text is not descriptive of the case of the righteous only; it is spoken of death as the common lot of man. Then we get all men into Heaven by dying, whatever may become of them afterward. Can it be true that every wicked man is to enter the gates of the holy city when he dies? See Rev.21:27; 22:14,15.
But does not this text really teach the entrance of the righteous into Heaven at death? Not unless it does that of the wicked also; for the text is descriptive of the common portion of mankind. The infirmities of old age are first described, and then the dissolution of man in death. The fact is, Solomon is admonishing the young men to attend to the service of God before these infirmities come on which lead to final dissolution. If it were only one class spoken of, it would be rather the wicked than the righteous, for Solomon would not have a young man grow up to these infirmities and consequent dissolution unprepared.
It is the unbuilding of the man after the infirmities of old age have worn out all his strength, that Solomon describes; it is not his translation [p. 13] to Heaven. The Lord God formed the man out of the dust of the ground. Death causes that dust to return to the earth as it was before it formed the man. If God does the first work, it is not God that destroys it. No; indeed. An enemy is the doer of all this.
"The spirit shall return unto God who gave it." There is a record of the giving of the spirit by God. When he had formed the man from the dust, he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. Now when death dissolves the man, this very thing which God gave to man, returns. What comes from God returns to God, just as what comes from earth returns to earth. Then what better proof can we have that men are happy with God when they die? Who can deny a blissful existence to the spirits of men in the presence of God? And what will you do now with all the texts that you adduce to show that in death there is no remembrance of God; that the thoughts of men perish in death; that they sleep in silence till the heavens pass away; that they are to be satisfied when they wake in Christ’s likeness; and that if there were no resurrection, there would be no advantage obtained, even by faithful Paul? Do not set these ideas aside too hastily; they are all ideas of men inspired of God. See Ps.6:5; Isa.38:18,19; Ps.146:4; Job14:12,13; Ps.17:15; 1Cor.15:32.
But if the spirit goes back to God, must it not be happy in his presence? And must it not know infinitely more than while the man lived? Those who ask such questions overlook one point in the text, and that point is the key to the whole subject. That which goes to God once came from him. [p. 14] You infer that in returning to God the spirit enters upon a blissful existence in his presence. Have you well considered the point? It exists in God’s presence after it has returned, with just as conscious an existence as it had before it came from him. No more goes back than came. It is no more exalted when it leaves man to go back to God than when it left God to come to man.
Did the spirits of the dead once live with God, then leave him and come and live with men, and then return to live again with God? It would be very absurd to affirm it. Somebody ought to remember something about living once in the presence of God before living in this world of sorrows. Why not someone recollect about this?
But if that be so, how much better off to have allowed us to stay in Heaven when we were there, than to send us into this world of sorrow, pollution, and crime. To be sure, if this text be rightly expounded by the popular interpretation, everybody gets back to Heaven when they die; but even then how much better is dissolution than creation? How much more beneficent the work of Satan in introducing death, which returns us all to Heaven, than the work of the Creator which took our happy spirits all out of Heaven to live in sorrow, sin, and pain!
The reader will see that there is just as much of blissful existence for the spirit after this life as before it. What came from God to enable the man to live, returns to God when he ceases to live.
There has been one grand act of the Creator in which he bestowed that upon man which at death he takes from him. God gave to Adam, when he formed him, the breath of life, and man, thus formed, became a living soul. It even says, God [p. 15] breathed this into man’s nostrils. This was what gave Adam life. Elihu tells us that "the breath of the Almighty" gave to him "LIFE;" i.e., by giving it to the common father of mankind. Job33:4.
What God gave to Adam was not an angel of glory to dwell in his body formed of dust. If it had been, what a misfortune to that heavenly being! No; it was simply "LIFE." Having made the man, God gave him life. When man had forfeited his right to live, God told him he must return to the ground out of which he was taken. Gen.3. And so when Adam closed his eyes in death, the great Creator took again to his own keeping that life which Adam gave up. God designs that men shall live again. He holds all in his hand till the hour shall arrive to give them life the second time. Jesus said that he laid down his life that he might take it up again. John10. And so when dying, commended his spirit, or life, to his Father’s hands.
Adam had his life from God. We have ours from Adam. Adam forfeited his right to live or God would never have taken from him that breath of life by which he was made alive. That being taken from him, he had just as much life as he had before it was given him, which was none at all. That which God breathed into his nostrils being taken from him by the Author of his existence, has just as much thought and knowledge as before being given to Adam, which was no knowledge at all.
He did not put within Adam a living, conscious, organized being from glory, but the man being organized out of dust, God put the principle of life in him, i.e., he made him alive.
Our life is from Adam. It is not immortal life. [p. 16] The facts are too palpable to believe thus of ourselves. Life is transmitted from parents to children. What vast multitudes of living beings perish without ever seeing the light, i.e., without ever being born. Yet they had life. And so life exists in that which precedes embryotic existence. But in all this there is no immortality. We cannot take from the first Adam what he had not to give. Nor can we find in death, which is the fruit of sin, the door back into that Paradise from which sin caused us to be expelled. But, thank God, the second Adam can give us a life that shall never end. "For as the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself." John5:26. Death cannot convey us to the presence of God; but the resurrection shall show us the path of life, and "so shall we ever be with the Lord."