"88 Facts Proving Hell Not the Grave (Cont'd.)

• 79. Since soul-sleep is not taught in the Scripture, and body-sleep is, then it is the body only that is unconscious in the grave. The soul goes to heaven or hell at death, as seen in the many scriptures above.
• 80. Since the bodies of the wicked as well as the righteous will become immortal in the resurrection, then it is impossible to burn them up, consume, annihilate, or cause them to become extinct through fire or any other means. Where are immortal wicked beings going to spend eternity as everlasting monuments of God's wrath and examples of eternal punishment for rebellion (as in Isaiah 66:22-24; Revelation 14:9-11; etc.) if not in hell?
• 81. Because there is full consciousness in the intermediate state between death and the resurrection, souls of the wicked as well as of the righteous, must go to some place of waiting to remain until the resurrection of the body. Where would the wicked go, to await their bodies and receive judgment and their degrees of punishment if it were not hell?
• 82. Since the word hell is never in the plural, and since it is always clear, not only from the original words, but from the subject matter of the texts that bodies are put into graves and souls go to heaven or hell, then we must acknowledge that hell is not the grave.
• 83. Of the 65 places where sheol is used, I I where hades is used. 12 where gehenna 5 the lake of fire, and the I time where tartarus is used in Scripture, only 2 places seem to teach that hell is the grave and that there is no consciousness in sheol (Psalm 6:5; Ecclesiastes 9:10).

  It must be remembered that the first passage is simply the statement of a man in great distress. He could not see how the inhabitants in sheol could remember God's goodness and give thanks to Him while in torment such as the rich man suffered in Luke 16. It is easily conceivable how such tormented rebels against God would not give thanks to Him, so this would not prove anything regarding hell being the grave. David did not believe that hell was the grave and that there is no life in sheol, for in many places he taught that sheol was the place of the immortal soul (Psalm 16:10; Acts 2:25-29; a place of sorrows and pains (Psalm 18:5); and a place of full consciousness where the wicked go at death (Psalm 9:17; 31:17; 68:18; 88:3).

  In the second passage, Ecclesiastes 9:10, Solomon merely expresses the idea that all human activity under the sun ceases at death, as proved by the next verse where he speaks of profit under the sun. The phrase under the sun is found 29 times in this short book. Solomon does not mean that hell is the grave in Ecclesiastes 9: 10 for elsewhere he teaches that the righteous do not go to the same compartment of sheol as the wicked do (Proverbs 5:5;7:27; 9-18; 15:11, 24; 23-14; 27:20).

• 84. The confinement of angels and demons to prisons under the earth because of sin proves that others, the immortal souls and spirits of the human race and of giants, can also be confined to material prisons in the underworld (I Pet. 3:19; 2 Peter 2:4; Jude 6-7; Revelation 9:1-21; 1; 20: 1 - 10; Isaiah 24:21-22).
• 85. Examples of continued consciousness after death prove that hell and heaven are real places of life and not the grave where there is no life (Matthew 17:5; Luke 16:19-3 1; Hebrews 12:23; Revelation 6:9-11).
• 86. The Bible refers to life after death in many places. See page 618 - Dake's notes.
• 87. Degrees of punishment in eternal hell prove that neither sheol-hades nor the lake of fire is the grave (Matthew 10: 15; 11:22-24; 16:27; 23:12-15; Revelation 20:11-15). How could there be any kind of eternal punishment, much less degrees of punishment if the wicked are extinct?
• 88. The eternal length of punishment of the wicked proves hell is not the grave. All bodies in graves will be resurrected and graves will be no more, but hell and eternal punishment will never end.