This study was raised due to some erroneous assumptions being made into the whereabouts of the dead following death, with some believing they go immediately to heaven or to hell.

Excerpts for this study came from a debate entitled “Where are the Dead?”

Now both the heathen and agnostic alike have their opinions as to the whereabouts of the dead, but here we are more interested in the Christian viewpoint. Christians are divided upon the issue with two-thirds holding to the Catholic view and one-third the Protestant view.

Catholics contend that when any one dies he goes to one of three places: 1) Heaven 2) Hell, or 3) Purgatory. The few, the “little flock” the “saints” the elect go immediately to the presence of God, to Heaven. “Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, that leads to life, and few there be that find it.” (Matt 7:14).

These saintly do not include our clergy, not even our bishops, cardinals and popes; for you will find that when any of these die it is a custom of the Church that masses be said for the repose of their souls. We would not say masses for any we believe to be in Heaven, because there surely is repose of every soul; neither would we say masses for them to be in eternal hell, for masses could not avail them there. We might remark, however, that we do not teach that many go to the eternal hell. It is our teaching that only the incorrigible heretics – persons who have had a full knowledge of Catholic doctrines and who have willfully and deliberately opposed them – these alone meet this awful, hopeless fate.

The dead in general, according to our teaching, pass immediately to Purgatory, which is, as the name indicates, a place of purgation from sin, a place of penances, sorrows, woes, anguish indeed, but not hopeless. The period of confinement here may be centuries or thousands of years, according to the desires of the individual and the alleviation’s granted.

Since Protestants don’t believe in purgatory this left them with just Heaven and Hell, into one of which, they say, every member of the race must go immediately upon death there to spend eternity.

Is either of these views true? What say the Scriptures?

The foregoing theories, be it noticed, are based upon the false assumption that death does not mean death – that to die is to become more alive than before death. In Eden it was God who declared to our first parents, “Ye shall surely die.” It was Satan who declared, “Ye shall not surely die.” Christendom has accepted Satan’s lie, and correspondingly rejected God’s Truth.

Do they not all agree with the serpent’s statement? Do they not all claim that the dead are alive – much more alive than before they died, alive in heaven, hell or purgatory?

This, dear friends, has been our common point of mistake. We have followed the wrong teacher, the one of whom our Lord said, “Abides not in the Truth,” and is the father of lies (John 8:44).

These false doctrines have prevailed amongst the heathen for many, many centuries, but they gained ascendancy in the Church of Christ during the Dark Ages, and had much to do with producing the darkness thereof. If our forefathers had believed God’s testimony, “Thou shalt surely die,” there would have been no room for the introduction of prayers for the dead, masses for their sins, frightful thoughts respecting their torture. The Scriptures agree from first to last that “the dead know not anything” (Eccl. 9:5), and that “His sons come to honor and he knows it not; and they are brought low, but he perceives it not of them” (Job 14:21).

It is the Scriptures alone that tell us where the dead truely are and their condition – that they are experiencing neither joy nor sorrow, pleasure nor suffering; that they will have no knowledge of anything done under the sun until their awakening in the Resurrection.

We remind you of the wise man’s words, “Whatsoever thy hand finds to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave (sheol), whither thou goes” (Eccl. 9:10).

We remind you that both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament it is written of both the good and the bad that they “fell asleep” in death.

We remind you that the Apostle Paul speaks of those who “sleep in Jesus,” and of those who have “fallen asleep in Christ”; who, he declares, ARE PERISHED if there be no resurrection of the dead (1 Cor 15:18).

Could they perish in Heaven, or in Purgatory, or in a Hell of torment?

Assuredly no one so teaches. They are already in a perished condition in the tomb; and the perishing would be absolute, complete, unless a resurrection is provided for their deliverance from the power of death. Hence we read, “God so loved the world that He gave His only Begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).

We will continue with our next post.