of thousands of godly men and women are living without a heavenly hope. What about the resurrection of persons of this kind who die before God destroys this old system of things and introduces his new world or system of things under the kingdom of Jesus Christ? Regarding these descendants of the first man Adam Paul’s words quoted above say: “The first man is out of the earth and made of dust . . . As the one made of dust is, so those made of dust are also.” To these the rule about kinds of seed must apply, as stated by Paul: “God gives it a body just as it has pleased him, and to each of the seeds its own body.”—1 Cor. 15:37, 38.

31. Accordingly, what bodies will God give them in the resurrection?

³¹ So it will be with persons who remain part of the earthly seed of mankind and who have not been begotten of God’s spirit to become a heavenly seed. In the resurrection they will be raised with bodies belonging to the earthly seed. God will give them bodies just as it pleases him, human bodies, but not identically the same human bodies with which they died. ‘Oh! ‘ some readers may say, ‘how, then, will it be the same person?’ Almighty God will see to it that it is the same person, even without the same body.

32. What question is raised as to the need for something to survive to preserve identity?

³² At that these readers will ask: ‘Does not something have to survive death in order for the person to be the same person in the resurrection and not some newly created person like the person who died? You have proved from the Bible that the human soul dies when a human creature dies and that the corpse is either eaten up by the fish of the sea or by the worms of the earth and thus it goes out of existence. This being so, nothing survives, no soul, no body.’

33. (a) In Ecclesiastes 12:7, what is it that returns to God? (b) How does Psalm 104:29, 30 show that God can re-create human souls?

³³ That is Scripturally right. And Ecclesiastes 12:7 says: “Then the dust returns to the earth just as it happened to be and the spirit itself returns to the true God who gave it.” The spirit of the wicked as well as the spirit of the righteous returns to God who gave it. How so? Because the spirit [rúahh] here mentioned is not the soul [néfesh], which has died. The spirit is the force of life that God has given or has caused to be transmitted to every person that is born. God withdraws that life force from all mankind who are under the inheritance of death from Adam, and, when God withdraws this spirit or life force, the human soul dies. (Rom. 5:12) God alone can restore this spirit or life force and thus cause souls to live again. Psalm 104:29, 30 says: “If you conceal your face, they get disturbed. If you take away their spirit, they expire, and back to their dust they go. If you send forth your spirit [not, your soul or their soul], they are created.” These inspired words assure us that Almighty God can re-create, yes, re-create human souls.

34, 35. (a) Why is a question raised regarding God’s power to re-create? (b) Who determines whether anything of the dead soul shall live on, and what scriptures show this?

³⁴ Here some readers will say, ‘How can God re-create souls or make the same souls over again, if nothing physical or spiritual lives on after the soul dies and the body goes to dust and gases?’

³⁵ Ah, but there is something of the dead soul that lives on, if God chooses to have it so, and this something lays the basis for a re-creation. What is that? The life record of the dead soul. God can blot out the record of a wicked soul or he can preserve the record of a righteous soul for His own reference and use. Exodus 32:33 (AV) says: “The LORD said unto Moses, Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book.” Deuteronomy 29:20 (AV) says: “The LORD shall blot out his name from under heaven.” Psalm 69:28 (AV) prays: “Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and not be written with the righteous.” Proverbs 10:7 (AV) says: “The memory of the just is blessed: but the name of the wicked shall rot.” Hence God does not keep the wicked ones in his memory. Because he blots them out of the book of the living, he will give them no resurrection from the dead.—Matt. 10:28; Ps. 145:20.

36. How is God’s ability to preserve records of dead souls shown to be most reasonable?

³⁶ Talk about preserving records, men today make motion pictures of a person on a film together with a sound track of his voice. This can be reproduced over television. In fact, men today can preserve on a phonograph record the speech and singing of a person. Even on a magnetic tape men can invisibly preserve television pictures and the voice of an actor. If imperfect dying men can do this because man was created in God’s image, what can Almighty God himself do in keeping records, even in his own memory, concerning persons for whom he reserves a resurrection from the dead by means of Jesus Christ? So our record with God is what counts.

37. (a) What does each one’s record with God represent? (b) How is it proved that soul according to the pagan Grecian idea is not the seat of intelligence and thought and personality?

³⁷ Each one of us makes his own record with God. That record represents you! It tells of your personality. Your personality does not altogether depend upon your physical body. Because of the continual wearing out and repairing of the tissues and organs of our bodies we get a completely new body every seven years or so. Yet our personality remains as an identification of our being the same person. Even our personalities can change, not because our bodies are renewed, but because God’s holy spirit or transforming force acts upon us. Each one develops his own personality pattern, and this is stored up in each one’s brain, also in the blood to some extent. The seat of intelligence, of thought, of memory, or consciousness and of personality is not some pagan Greek idea of a soul or psykhé. Pagans argue that a soul resides in each of us and is the seat of intelligence and personality; but we know that if the physical brain is damaged in anyone, he loses his intelligence or sanity and no so-called soul inside him keeps him intelligent, sane or possessed of memory and thinking ability. This disproves the pagan theory of an immortal soul as the seat of life and thought.

38. How will God re-create dead souls, and what does Ecclesiastes 11:3 indicate regarding this?

³⁸ God knows all this. At his time for resurrecting the earthly dead souls under the kingdom of his Son Jesus Christ, God can consult his records of each one or his own memory of each one. He can give each person resurrected to life on earth a “body just as it has pleased him,” with its distinct type of blood. That body will have a human brain, not made, of course, of identically the same atoms or molecules that the person had in the brain with which he died. Yet it will be the same brain. How? In that God will exactly reproduce the brain that the individual had at death. He will repeat its convolutions and implant in them the record that the individual made of himself in the former life. God will implant the exact impressions and memories of all things that happened during the person’s previous consciousness, his power of recognizing people and scenes and locations, and all his personality traits, and everything that displays his mental growth or retardation. This will be because, when he died as a soul, he experienced no mental or personality changes afterward in death. At what state of attainment his personality and mentality fell in death, there they remained.—Eccl. 11:3.

39. Thus why would the person resurrected be, not some newly created person like him, but the person that died?

³⁹ Thus in the resurrection that person with that personality and brain ability will be the individual that died, not some other person like him. Nobody else made the record that is reproduced in this resurrected person; and no person who is merely like him could account for having such a record in himself since he did not work out that particular record. So if you were to die and have a resurrection, and God provided a body with a brain like yours and with your record at death, that resurrected person would be you, nobody else but you. Your acquaintances would know it was you.

40. (a) What opportunity will the resurrection of dead souls on earth open up to them? (b) What special opportunity do proclaimers of God’s kingdom today have before them, and why?

⁴⁰ How wonderful that in God’s resurrection of the dead souls we shall know one another and also remember God’s past loving-kindness to us! The resurrection of the dead souls to life on earth will open up an opportunity for them to gain life everlasting on a paradise earth under the perfect government of God’s kingdom. (Luke 23:42, 43, Ro; NW) Besides that, there lives on earth today a great crowd of God-fearing people who are proclaiming God’s kingdom worldwide and who will not need a resurrection from the common grave of dead mankind. These people will survive the “war of the great day of God the Almighty” with which this wicked system of things will end shortly. (Rev. 16:14, 16) Thus without dying they will enter into the new world under God’s kingdom and gain the prize of everlasting life for themselves. They will also be on hand to welcome back the earthly dead in the resurrection. But that is a subject for discussion some other time.

Patient Endurance Brings Rewards

One of Jehovah’s witnesses from Ohio related this experience at an assembly in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, in 1962: “About ten to twelve years ago I was working in a little village where I knew nearly everyone, and everyone knew me. When I knocked on one door the lady said, ‘Come in. I’m a Seventh-day Adventist, and there never has been one of Jehovah’s witnesses in my house. In fact, I wouldn’t have let you in if I hadn’t known you. I know enough about the Bible to know there is only one truth, only one religion that God recognizes. We can’t both be right. I want the truth, and I don’t care where it comes from. If my religion can’t stand any test, it isn’t worth much.’ I agreed, ‘We both can’t be right. Like you, I want a religion that can stand any test.’

“So on this basis a Bible study was started in the book ‘Let God Be True.’ We did fine over a period of time till we came to the chapter on the sabbath. During the next six to eight years this person stopped and then resumed the study many times, and the chapter on the sabbath was studied perhaps ten or more times with different Witnesses. During the past five or six years she has been coming to the Kingdom Hall now and then. One never knew who would be with her; maybe her husband, sister, daughter or other relative, or one of the neighbors. In 1960, she started preaching the good news of the Kingdom with me. She is a regular publisher. In September, 1962, she and her sister were baptized. Today one of my greatest joys is to hear her explain the sabbath from the Bible to a person of goodwill.”