"I am He that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore." Revelation 1:18. Such is the language by which Christ proclaims Himself the Everliving One, to His church and people.

It will be readily seen that life and death are opposite conditions. Christ lived after He had been dead, but there is no life in death. Of the wicked it is distinctly stated that "they lived not again" till the thousand years are finished (Revelation 20:5, 6). It is very evident, then, that they could not be alive while they were dead.

The life that God has for His people is not a life in death, but a life after death! Christ declares, "I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." John 11:25. Of the redeemed it is written, "Neither can they die any more," for they are children of God, being children of the resurrection (Luke 20:36). All who rise in the first resurrection are the children of God. The resurrection takes place when the Lord descends from heaven to call His sleeping ones from the dust.

There is only one thing about man that death cannot touch the character-life written in the books of heaven. That is the soul part of man that God only can destroy (Matthew 10:28). If that character-life is one worthy of being made immortal, in the resurrection, that man will be raised in the image of the Divine, and so "this mortal shall put on immortality" (1 Corinthians 15:54).

We find the words soul and spirit mentioned 1,700 times in the Bible, but neither is once said to be immortal! The Hebrew and Greek terms that these words represent in our language are applied in the Scriptures to 69 different things. But so far from representing anything immortal, one of the things to which the Hebrew word for soul is applied is "dead body," and it is thus used seven times in the Old Testament (See Leviticus 21:11; Numbers 6:6; 9:6, 7).

Immortality is given to man only when he lives again after death, or when this vile body is changed and made "like unto His glorious body" (Philippians 3:21). Man must look for immortality, for it is not something that he already possesses (Romans 2:6, 7). He must receive it as a gift from God, to be put on at the resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:53).

When this mortal has put on immortality, and this corruptible has put on incorruption, death will be fully swallowed up in victory, for the holy ones can "die no more."

The living saints will also be "changed" when Christ comes, so that, with the holy dead that live again in the first resurrection, they may be able to bear the weight of eternal years. "We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed." Then, as we have borne the image of the earthly, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly (1 Corinthians 15:49).

God cannot make the image of sin or the "sinful" immortal. Only those bearing the image of the Divine may live again in the long, endless life that measures with the life of God. It is in this life that the change of character must be wrought. It is here that we, who live in a world full of evil, may become "partakers of the Divine nature."

When brought face to face with the question as to the true state of the dead, many will try to brush it aside with the remark. "No one has ever come back to tell us!" The facts are that some have returned from the grave. No! We are not referring to some phantom apparition which claims to be the spirit of the one deceased, but to ordinary individuals who have in a miraculous way been raised from the dead, have returned to their homes and loved ones, and have again resumed the cares and burdens of this mortal life. The most outstanding case on record was that of Lazarus, brother of Mary and Martha. He had been dead four days, and in the ordinary course of events the processes of decay would be well advanced. Read carefully the description of this miracle as recorded in John 11. The raising of Lazarus was not witnessed by the disciples and the sisters alone, but also by a company of Jews who had come from Jerusalem to sympathize with the bereaved. If the popularly accepted belief is true that the conscious part of man goes directly to heaven at death, then we would expect Christ to call Lazarus down from heaven. Instead we read, "And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin." John 11:43, 44. There is not the slightest hint or intimation that the soul of Lazarus was called back from the realms of bliss to join again the mortal clay. No! Christ called to Lazarus "Come forth," and immediately he was awakened from the sleep of death.

The record shows that some who beheld this miracle believed in Jesus while others were so hardened in their stubborn unbelief that they were only the more determined to oppose the work of Christ, and even a secret plot was schemed to silence the testimony of Lazarus. We do not know how long Lazarus lived during this second span of life, but it is evident there would have been abundant opportunity for anyone who wished to get a firsthand report from him of his feelings, emotions, and experiences at death and immediately after. How widespread would be the interest in such an account! How important would such information be to the schools of religious thought!

The reason the news agencies of the day did not give widespread publicity to such a story from Lazarus was because he had no story to tell. The very silence on the subject is confirmation of the very clear Biblical truth "the dead know not anything"; that in the moment a man closes his eyes in death "the thoughts perish." Yes, there were others, also, who came back from the grave. To name those recorded in the New Testament, we have that of Jairus' daughter; the son of the widow of Nain; the young man who fell from the upstairs window at Troas, and was raised to life by the apostle Paul; and that of Dorcas who was restored to the church at Joppa. Could it be that these resurrected ones were sworn to a conspiracy of secrecy, to keep to themselves the knowledge which only they could give concerning the mysteries of death? Like Lazarus, they had nothing to say, because there was nothing to say. "For in death there is no remembrance of Thee: in the grave who shall give thanks?" Psalm 6:5. When there is no consciousness neither can there be any memory, as one depends upon the other.

The wicked rise in the second resurrection at the end of the thousand years (Revelation 20:5). They also live again after death (for Christ gave His life for all), but with this difference they still bear the image of the earthly. There is no change for the unholy; they rise with the likeness of sin still upon them, hence it is that when they awake God will "despise their image" (Psalm 73:20).

The wicked also come from the grave, that land of silence, but in their awakening they rise to receive the reward of a life misspent a life altogether unfitted for immortality. During the long years of resting in the tomb the wicked have not been suffering punishment. Job tells us that "the wicked is reserved to the day of destruction," and that he "shall be brought forth to the day of wrath" (Job 21:30). And Peter says that the unjust are reserved "unto the day of judgment to be punished." 2 Peter 2:9.

Human theology has long since consigned the unholy to regions of torment without either judge or jury, but God does not work in this way. He will not at last call forth millions of wretched beings, who have been suffering for ages, to see if in the judgment they are found worthy of punishment. No! This is not God's plan. All sleep alike until the time of the first or second resurrection. Then they awaken, some to life, some to shame and contempt. The wicked must pass the trial of fire. But when subjected to the burning, instead of standing unscathed amid the flames, behold, the "smoke" of their torment ascends, and the astonished universe can see that the fire has power over them (Revelation 14:9-11). That smoke continues to ascend until all is consumed, and so the unholy pass away from the face of God's creation forever. "They shall consume; into smoke shall they consume away." Psalm 37:20.

The Greek word translated "torment" in Revelation 14:11 is basanismos, and it is defined by Dr. Young as "a trial, testing, torment." This word comes from basanos, the name of a Lydian stone that was supposed to possess the property of testing metals. The idea of torment is altogether a secondary meaning, as the word primarily signifies "a trial," or "testing." This is the only sense in which it can be applied to the future punishment of the wicked.

Of that time of testing the prophet writes: "Behold, the day cometh that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, all that do wickedly, shall be stubble; and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch." Malachi 4:1. In this final testing the wicked meet the demands of the sentence first pronounced upon man: "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." Genesis 3:19.

We read in the Holy Book of a people over whom "the second death hath no power" (Revelation 20:6). We read also of a people who live to "die no more" (Luke 20:36). Here man is subject to death. All life forms die, and this old earth has become a wilderness of gravesa garden of death, where all the fairest blossoms die.

But there is a time coming when the face of man shall no longer wear its shroud of sorrow, or the heart weep its tears of pain. A time when the eyes of man may look out over scenes immortal without fear of the dimness that falls at eventime.

Man cannot fully understand the meaning of "eternal life," but he knows what it is to die. He may then know how sweet life would be without ever a fear or even a thought of death.

That long hereafter will be spent in a land where the inhabitants shall not say, "I am sick," and where life shall be no longer bounded by impossibilities.

Would you know of the hereafter? Go to the Book divine, for that word must be the guide of every child of God, until at last "They shall see His face."