from the grave<\/em>. She felt confused as to how the soul can be in this holding place and yet still be called from the grave.<\/p>\nI thought it over and reasoned that “the grave” may not necessarily mean the physical grave itself, but rather from death. The wording “dead will be raised” seems to call up the images of actually coming forth from the grave itself, but upon closer inspection, the verses can just as easily be taken to mean from death than a burial spot. This would also correlate with her other question about cremation, for if one considers, of course, those whose bodies are incinerated in explosions, etc, etc., then their soul wouldn’t have an actual spot to rise from. Therefore, the phrases regarding “the dead” or “the grave” can’t mean an actual physical spot, because there could easily be many who don’t have one!<\/p>\n
What do you think?<\/p>\n\t
Answer:<\/h2>\n
In order to understand this better, you should realize that in the Hebrew language there is only one word for grave and the realm of the dead — the word\u00a0sheol<\/em>.<\/p>\n“And all his sons and all his daughters arose to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted, and he said, “For I shall go down into the\u00a0grave<\/strong>\u00a0to my son in mourning.” Thus his father wept for him<\/em>” (Genesis 37:35).<\/p>\n“So they and all those with them went down alive into the\u00a0pit<\/strong>; the earth closed over them, and they perished from among the assembly<\/em>” (Numbers 16:33).<\/p><\/blockquote>\nThe use of the word “down” makes one think of a physical grave, which is probably what is intended. However, there are verses where\u00a0sheol<\/em> is referred to as a single place that contains all the dead.<\/p>\n“Hell\u00a0<\/strong>from beneath is excited about you, To meet you at your coming; It stirs up the dead for you, All the chief ones of the earth; It has raised up from their thrones All the kings of the nations<\/em>” (Isaiah 14:9).<\/p>\n“I said, “In the prime of my life I shall go to the gates of\u00a0Sheol<\/strong>; I am deprived of the remainder of my years”<\/em>” (Isaiah 38:10).<\/p><\/blockquote>\nThat flexibility is carried over into the New Testament even though in Greek there is a separate word for a burial place (mnemeion<\/em>) and the realm of the dead (hades<\/em>). In John 5:28 it does refer to physical graves since it is used in the plural, but since we know that at death the spirit returns to God, “Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it<\/em>” (Ecclesiastes 12:7), we understand that the graves here is a stand in to represent the place of the dead. In language, it is called a “synecdoche,” a figure of speech where one idea is exchanged for another.<\/p>\nTo give you another example of a synecdoche, “If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food<\/em>” (James 2:15), the word “naked” is used to represent someone who is poorly clothed and not literally lacking all clothing.<\/p>\nI Corinthians 15:54-55 talks of death in another figure of speech where an inanimate concept (death) is treated as a living being. Notice it is also used in the singular and paralleled to hades, so this doesn’t prove a physical resurrection from earthly graves.<\/p>\n
II Thessalonians 4:13-18 refers to those who are asleep, which is another synecdoche for being dead. Again, it doesn’t indicate how people will come back from death.<\/p>\n
Actually, Paul said, “Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed — in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality<\/em>” (I Corinthians 15:51-53). Since the dead will be raised incorruptible and Paul already argued that the physical body cannot inherit the spiritual kingdom, this indicates the dead will not be physically raised but raised in the spirit having new, spiritual bodies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Question: I’ve had someone ask me about where the soul goes after death and how that correlates with the resurrection. I looked up\u00a0articles on your site\u00a0and was able to answer most of her questions, but one still remains. In Luke 16:19-31\u00a0we, of course, read the account of the rich man and Lazarus, gleaning the spiritual…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[20],"tags":[109,664,339],"class_list":["post-19190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-death","tag-resurrection","tag-second-coming"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":24893,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/did-jesus-spend-three-days-in-hades\/","url_meta":{"origin":19190,"position":0},"title":"Did Jesus spend three days in hades?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 1, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I had a lady try to tell me that Jesus spent three days in Hades before he arose from the grave. I didn't really get to discuss this with her because she had to leave.\u00a0How do people come up with this kind of thinking? Answer: Sometimes people make up\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":27163,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/how-could-david-see-his-child-when-david-hasnt-ascended-to-heaven\/","url_meta":{"origin":19190,"position":1},"title":"How could David see his child when David hasn’t ascended to heaven?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 10, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hello, You said that David would see his child when he died.\u00a0 I don't understand this because Acts 2:34 says that David has not ascended into the heavens. (David was long dead by this time).\u00a0 Also, John 3:13 says no one has ascended into heaven except Christ.\u00a0 Also, John\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":14226,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/did-jesus-go-to-hell\/","url_meta":{"origin":19190,"position":2},"title":"Did Jesus go to Hell?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 21, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Did Jesus go to Hell? Answer: The idea comes from a poor choice of words selected by the translators of the King James Version of the Bible. \"He seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":68549,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/since-baptism-is-a-burial-shouldnt-everything-be-under-simultaneously\/","url_meta":{"origin":19190,"position":3},"title":"Since baptism is a burial, shouldn’t everything be under simultaneously?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"June 27, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Dear Minister, I was recently baptized. The water was not very deep, but the baptizer said it was deep enough. It was deep enough to be immersed in, but still shallow enough to be risky to have part of the body not fully immersed at the same time. The\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":53714,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/till-my-change-comes\/","url_meta":{"origin":19190,"position":4},"title":"Till My Change Comes","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 21, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry W. Benton Job had quite impressive faith. He believed in life after this body is put down in death. He said, \"If a man dies, shall he live again? All the days of my hard service I will wait, till my change comes\" (Job 14:14). It is evident\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12801,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/are-there-any-other-mentions-of-the-saints-rising-from-the-dead-at-jesus-death\/","url_meta":{"origin":19190,"position":5},"title":"Are there any other mentions of the saints rising from the dead at Jesus’ death?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 22, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: In Matthew 27:51-53,\u00a0it says\u00a0\"And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom; and the earth shook, and the rocks were split; the tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19190\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}