Is death the end, or will the dead rise?

Hard question · Psalms, wisdom and the prophets · raised by 3 of the lists sceptics circulate

Read in contextBoth true, in different senses

See the passages joined in the interactive map

The passages

Job 7:9–10

Whoever goes down to the grave “shall come up no more”; he will not return to his house.

As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away: so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more. He shall return no more to his house, neither shall his place know him any more.

Job 14:14

Job asks, “If a man die, shall he live again?”

If a man die, shall he live again? all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come.

Job 19:25–27

Job declares that his Redeemer lives and that in his flesh he will see God.

For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me.

Ecclesiastes 3:19–21

Men die as beasts die; all go to one place and turn to dust again; who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward?

For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all is vanity. All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again. Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?

Ecclesiastes 9:5–6

The dead know nothing and have no more portion in anything done under the sun.

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. Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun.

Ecclesiastes 12:7

At death the dust returns to the earth and the spirit returns to God who gave it.

Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.

Daniel 12:2

Many who sleep in the dust will awake, some to everlasting life and some to everlasting contempt.

And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.

1 Corinthians 15:52

At the last trumpet the dead will be raised incorruptible.

In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

The objection

Job says that whoever goes down to the grave “shall come up no more” (Job 7:9). Ecclesiastes says “the dead know not any thing”, and that a man dies like a beast: “as the one dieth, so dieth the other” (Ecclesiastes 9:5; 3:19). Daniel and Paul say the dead will be raised, some to everlasting life and some to everlasting contempt (Daniel 12:2; 1 Corinthians 15:52). Does the Bible teach that death is final or not?

The answer

Job and Ecclesiastes speak of death as it looks from this life; Daniel and Paul speak of what God will do at the end. Job 7:9–10 says the dead do not come back to the life they left: “He shall return no more to his house, neither shall his place know him any more.” Resurrection is not a return to that old life, and Job himself, later in the same book, reaches towards it: “If a man die, shall he live again?” (14:14), and then, “in my flesh shall I see God” (19:26).

Ecclesiastes speaks of life “under the sun”, this world as anyone can observe it. The dead know nothing of what happens here and have no more “portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun” (9:6). When the Preacher says that men die as beasts die, he means what the eye can see: “all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again” (3:20). Yet he does not say that the dead cease to exist: at death “the spirit shall return unto God who gave it”, and God will bring every work into judgment (12:7, 14). Job’s longing for the grave as a rest from trouble (Job 3:17) is a cry of grief, not a doctrine, and the hope that is still dim in Job is stated plainly in Daniel 12:2 and made sure by the resurrection of Christ (1 Corinthians 15).

Still open

The Hebrew of Job 19:25–27 is hard, and Christian scholars differ on how clearly Job speaks of a bodily resurrection; some render verse 26 ‘without my flesh’ rather than “in my flesh”. The answer above does not rest on that verse alone.

From the classic commentators

He that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more until the general resurrection, shall come up no more to his place in this world.Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, on Job 7:9

is to be interpreted of their bodily senses now extinct, and of worldly things they have now nothing to do with; they know not any thing that is done in this worldJohn Gill, Exposition of the Bible, on Ecclesiastes 9:5