Death and the State of the Dead - Part 4

Aren’t the spirits of just men made perfect after death?

Text in question: Hebrews 12:23
” to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect.”

Proof texts: Hebrews 12:18-24

Here Paul gives a sentence fragment of a verse, but people think it stands alone as a theological basis for a doctrine. The book of Hebrews must be examined in its entirety to reach conclusions about the theology presented in it. The theme of Hebrews is keeping Christians of Jewish descent from returning to Jewish traditions by explaining how they were all fulfilled in the life and death of Jesus Christ. For example, it describes the position of the High Priest of the sanctuary system as an office that must continually fall to other men since the existing High Priest eventually dies, but that the heavenly sanctuary has an eternal High Priest…Jesus, who is not subject to death. This comparison between the old system and the new sets up the context for the verse in question regarding “the spirits of just men made perfect.” Hebrews 12:18. This verse begins this comparison during which we find the text in question. Paul describes the experience of Moses and the Israelites in the desert at Mt. Sinai when they received the Ten Commandments from God. The Bible states in Hebrews 12:18-21 - “For you have not come to the mountain that may be touched and that burned with fire, and to blackness and darkness and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, so that those who heard it begged that the word should not be spoken to them anymore. (For they could not endure what was commanded, ‘And if so much as a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned or shot with an arrow.’ And so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, ‘I am exceedingly afraid and trembling’). To the people at Mt. Sinai, the presence of God was foreboding and terrifying. Even the righteous Moses is said to have been “exceedingly afraid.” By contrast, the Christian people need not be afraid of God because their sins have been forgiven by the blood of Jesus Christ. To illustrate this Paul continues in Hebrews 12:22-24:  “But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel” The comparison is striking. Mt. Sinai brought fear and trembling. Mt. Zion brings heaven itself and joy in the presence of the angels, the saved, and Jesus Christ.

Understanding this context, we know that the groups listed in the passage are those that will be present in heaven when the day comes, but they are not necessarily in heaven already. Paul writes that “you have come” to Mount Zion and the heavenly Jerusalem; yet the readers were still alive when they read this book, so they clearly had not literally come to heaven. Rather, they accept by faith that, even though they remain on earth, they have already come to be part of heaven and will be there physically someday. This is important, because Paul describes each group in terms of their current status, rather than their eventual status (“are registered in heaven,” rather than “are present in heaven”).

According to this passage, we can expect to see the following in heaven:

• Innumerable angels
• God the Judge of all
• Jesus the Mediator

The passage also lists two distinct groups that refer to human beings. They are:

• The church of the firstborn
• Spirits of just men made perfect

Ok now to me you have to ask yourself this question….why would Paul list two groups of people here? Let’s identify who they are…..

The “firstborn” is Jesus Christ (read Revelation 1:5). Therefore, the “church of the firstborn” consists of faithful members of the Christian church. But God also had people before the time of Christ. They would not be included in this group. Will they still be in heaven? Of course!! Many people from the Old Testament will be numbered among the saved, even though they lived before Christ’s time. This is why Paul lists the second group of people. Christ died on the cross bearing the sins of the whole world, including those of the men and women who had lived before His time. Those people were thereby justified by His sacrifice. Through knowledge of the sanctuary sacrifice system or a belief in God from some other source, these people died looking forward to the coming of Christ and are therefore cleansed from sin. They are justified. The Bible refers to them, as “just men made perfect.” Though sinners, they are justified by God and made perfect through Christ’s sacrifice. Christians in the New Testament era are also justified by faith, but Paul of Hebrews has already accounted for them by listing the “church of the firstborn. Why, then are these deceased saints listed as spirits? Some argue that it is because they live on in heaven in spiritual form. However, the verse equally supports the idea of sleeping in death while awaiting the resurrection. Once the body dies, the breath (or spirit) of God that animated the body returns to God who gave it. Therefore, since those saints had died, the only part left of them is the spirit until God creates for them new bodies when Christ returns. If you study the nature of death God’s spirit is not the same as an immortal human soul. Peter also used the term “spirits” to refer to people living in the past who were deceased when he wrote his book. (See 1 Peter 3:18-20). So this abundance of biblical evidence regarding the nature of death, allows us to draw a conclusion against using this text to support an immortal human soul.

God is the “Father of Spirits.” Doesn’t that mean we live on as spirits?

Text in question: Hebrews 12:9

“We have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live?” 

When you study the Bible you must be careful about the study techniques used to gain knowledge of God and divine things. It is a common temptation to “read into” Scriptural texts, a pre-determined idea that we merely want to be true because it feels good and puts our mind at ease, it's something to hold onto. However, when we add meaning to verses that is not explicitly inferred, we often come to incorrect ideas that are not otherwise supported by the Bible, or which even contradict other parts of the Bible which is just wrong on our thinking. The Bible never contradicts itself. Such is often the case with this verse regarding the “Father of Spirits” in Hebrews chapter 12. 

This is the only location in the entire Bible where this phrase is used. Even with the added context of the rest of chapter 12, no additional information comes to light as to what exactly is meant by this phrase. Some people or churches take this single text as proof that we continue to live in spirit form after death….Because God is our Father, and also the Father of spirits, we must therefore be the spirits in question. Other churches or people use this text to support the idea that we lived in spiritual form before our human births (believing in past lives which is spiritualism and wicca type views) and they therefore build entire theologies around the idea of pre-existence. The human body becomes temporary, in this view. It did not exist in the beginning, and will not exist after death, but we were and will be alive even without the body. Without any other texts throughout Hebrews, we must turn to the other Scriptures in the Bible to gain a better understanding of the nature of “spirits” as they are described in the Bible. We find many examples in the book of Revelation. John, the author of Revelation uses the phrase “in the spirit” several times throughout the book. The first instance is in Revelation 1:10 which reads: “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day, and I heard behind me a loud voice, as of a trumpet. John repeats this phrase in Revelation 4:2, 17:3, and also in 21:10. Each time the Spirit of God brings John to a different location to see a prophetic vision, even though he remains physically on the island of Patmos. We see the term “spirit” used to describe the state of a prophet while in this vision. We also see another use of the word in Revelation 1:4, which says: “John, to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace to you and peace from Him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne. Here the spirits appear to be other beings in heaven who minister before the throne of God. While we don’t know specifically from the Bible, they appear to be non-physical beings, since elsewhere throughout the book we also see “elders,” “angels,” and “creatures.” We can be reasonably certain that they are not deceased human beings, because Revelation 20:4, 5 tells us that the dead do not return to life until after the second coming of Jesus Christ. That is such a key verse to me with this whole study and so clear. Those two verses encompass all the dead, both the righteous and the wicked. Finally, Revelation also tells us about “unclean spirits.” If you read Revelation 16:13,14: “And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs … they are the spirits of demons. These texts specifically tell us that the term spirit can refer to as demons!!! Demons are very clearly not deceased human beings. These are only a few of the instances in which the Bible uses the term “spirit.” The word clearly refers to a multitude of creatures and states of being. Yet God is Father over them all because the Bible tells us plainly that all things were made through God (read John 1:3). In light of this, we cannot state conclusively that Hebrews 12:9 refers to people in spiritual form, either before human birth or after death. To make such a claim requires us to ignore other biblical evidence.