How does a Jehovah’s Witness answer this question? The Watchtower has taught them that man has no soul apart from his body, and that after death there is no existence until a future resurrection. They quote such verses as Ecclesiastes 9:5, Psalms 146:3-4, and many other verses they can find which ‘prove’ that man is of the dust of the ground and to dust he shall return, and that all his thoughts perish with him. Of course this cult conveniently quotes Old Testament Scripture here because God had not yet revealed to man the good news, or ‘gospel’ of everlasting life.
But how does the Bible answer this question? Ecclesiastes 9:5 and Psalms 146:3-4 only prove the obvious: that man’s body dies and decomposes, and that dead bodies are unconscious and cannot think. In the Old Testament, God had promised righteous man a long (though limited) and prosperous life on earth (Ex. 20:2; Deut. 5:16; Eph. 6:3). The good news of everlasting life He had not yet revealed to man. But where is the revelation of this good news found in the Bible?
One of the two criminals crucified beside Jesus “said unto Jesus, Lord remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:42-43, KJV) Death was apparent and imminent for all three of them on this very day. And Jesus said, on this very same day this man shall be with him in paradise. Verily, an existence in paradise immediately after death!
What really happened to our Lord’s betrayer, Judas Iscariot, after his death? The Bible gives us a clue: “…but woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! It had been good for that man if he had not been born.” (Matt. 26:24, KJV) It is important to note that if he had not been born, the betrayer would have been nonexistent. But nonexistence was better than the punishment now in store for him. Plainly, something other than nonexistence is spoken of here. So, the Watchtower must be wrong in its teaching that Judas’ death plunged him into eternal nonexistence.
Besides paradise, the Bible plainly speaks about hell. To deny the Christian doctrine of hell is to deny the Holy Scriptures. Luke 16:19-31 describes the state of man in hell: “There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day: And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores, and desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried; And in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried out and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from hence. Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father’s house: For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment. Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them. And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent. And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.” Clearly, this passage shows that the rich man was conscious after his death and burial, and was tormented.
The Watchtower teaches the following sequence of events as truth: that man lives, dies, and is nonexistent until a future bodily resurrection, whereby he becomes conscious again to be judged. After judgment, if he is wicked, he is thrown into the lake of fire to be instantly disintegrated into nothingness. But, is this what the Bible says? Hardly. Scripture tells us that the rich man and the beggar both lived and died. After his death, the rich man opened his eyes and looked up at the beggar in Abraham’s bosom. This looking is a conscious act. He was also in torments. Feeling is a conscious phenomenon. He spoke to Abraham. Speech is a conscious act.
So, the rich man lived, died, and was conscious after death, doing conscious things (looking, being tormented, speaking). Does this sequence of events follow the Watchtower’s above sequence? Was the rich man unconscious after he died and was buried? Does the conversation between the rich man and Abraham indicate an instant disintegration in the flames of hell? The very fact that he begged Abraham to warn his five brothers about this place of torment shows that his brothers, just as the rest of the world, went on with their lives normally. There is no indication of any resurrection before or after the death of the rich man and the beggar. Obviously, the sequence of events that the Watchtower teaches DOES NOT match the sequence of events that the Bible teaches, and is therefore false! This passage, without any reasonable doubt, disproves the Watchtower teachings that hell is the grave, and that man is nonexistent in the space of time between death and resurrection.
But the Watchtower claims that this passage is just a parable, and that it doesn’t really speak about hell, but rather the current state of affairs between the Apostles, the Jewish leaders, and God. David A. Reed, a former Jehovah’s Witness elder, describes this belief in detail:
In the Watchtower’s interpretation, Lazarus pictures Jesus’ disciples, the rich man pictures the Jewish religious leaders, Abraham pictures Jehovah God, the death of each pictures a change of conditions for each group while here on earth, and the torments of the rich man picture the public exposure of Jewish religious leaders by the Apostles’ preaching. Therefore, Jesus was not really talking about the condition of the dead in Luke 16, according to the Watchtower Society….But an examination of the Lord’s other parables reveals that all of them were illustrations based on real-life situations….So, if the story of the rich man and Lazarus is like all the rest of Jesus’ parables, it must also use a real situation to illustrate spiritual things. People must really have a conscious existence after death, and some of them must really be “in torments,” deeply regretting their past life. Regardless of what the parable illustrates, the basic story, like other stories Jesus told, must be taken from real life.[1]
Someone is obviously grasping at straws here. But let’s give the Watchtower some credit: It takes a creative mind to imagine such an explanation. On the other hand, the Devil can influence anybody whose heart is not close to Christ. It is clearly obvious that, to back up its no-hell doctrine, the Watchtower denies what the Bible plainly says.
Let us ponder for a moment about the dead: A buried corpse will not open its eyes in the grave to see. It will not speak. It will not be tormented by the worms that devour it, nor by the process of its own decay. How then, could the rich man look, speak and suffer? Was his body resurrected after his death? This was just proven not to be so. He did these things while he was dead, but conscious. This consciousness is the life-force that never dies, though the body it dwells in is destroyed in death. This is the pneuma, the spirit.
During Christ’s transfiguration, “there appeared unto [his apostles] Moses and Elias talking with him” (Matt. 17:3, KJV). Jehovah’s Witnesses might argue that Elias appeared in his body because he had never died, and this would be true. But the same can’t be said about Moses, who died, and whose body was buried, and who now appears here in spirit. This is Scriptural proof of man’s existence apart from his body, after death, and before the resurrection on Judgment Day.
Jesus Christ made a distinction between body and soul: “And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” (Matthew 10:28) Jesus tells us that man can kill the body, but there is something else, which he cannot kill but which only God can—the soul. In this verse, Jesus plainly speaks of two separate things: The effect on one object to the exclusion of another indicates the existence of two different objects. This is proven by the word “both”, which addresses two objects; and the logical operator “and” which logically connects two or more things together. Similarly, Luke 12:4-5 makes the same distinction between the body and the soul: “And I say unto you my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him.” Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that hell is the grave. But if this is so, then why would the above verse point out that God has the power, after he has killed the body, to cast it into the grave? Doesn’t man also have this power? And isn’t it man who buries his dead, not God? Burial after death goes without saying, so the above verse cannot possibly speak about God casting the dead into the grave. We are told that man can do no more to a person after he has killed the body and buried it. But God, after he has killed the body of a person, and after man has buried it, can do more to this person—things that man cannot do at all. This is Scriptural proof that hell is not the grave, but rather something beyond the grave. And if the body is killed, and more can be done to the person whose body is killed, then shouldn’t some other part of this person exist after the body is dead? Obviously, for the Scripture to be correct, some other part of the person must exist after his body has been killed, in order for more to be done to him. This is logical. So, what other part could this be?
Matthew 10:28, above, has already informed us: It is the “soul”, or spirit, this life force beyond the body, which the apostle Paul referred to in 2 Corinthians 5. Here, Paul wrote of the body as “the earthly tent we live in,” adding that he “would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord,” and warning that “we must all appear before the Judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive good or evil, according to what he has done in the body” (vv. 1,8-10). Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t believe in the existence of the soul. But, if they were correct, then what part of Paul could leave his body and go to be with the Lord?
And let’s not forget Revelation 6:9-11, which speaks of “the souls of them that were slain for the word of God,” asking God when their blood would be avenged. It adds that “white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow servants also and their brethren, that they should be killed as they were”. These souls had been killed, but they are depicted as being in God’s presence engaging in conversation with Him.
Scripture proves, conclusively, that man exists consciously immediately after death, and that he either enters into “paradise” (Luke 23:43), or is “thrust out” (Luke 13:28) into the “outer darkness” (Matt. 8:12), the “place of torment” (Luke 16:28) which is a “furnace of fire” (Matt. 13:42,50) called “Gehenna” (Luke 12:5, NWT), where he will “mourn and weep” (Luke 6:25) and “gnash his teeth” (Matt. 13:42,50; Luke 13:28) from being “tormented in this flame” (Luke 16:24). The Watchtower’s doctrine of post-death nonexistence contradicts Scripture and therefore is FALSE!
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