Hello Mike,

The scripture in Ecc 12: 7 says when  a man dies his body goes back to the ground but his spirit goes back to God. If the dead knows nothing, what is the state of this spirit that is gone back to God?

Thanks for an early reply.

R____

Hi R____,

Thank you for your question.

Here is the verse you reference:

Ecc 12:7  Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it. 

You ask: “If the dead knows nothing, what is the state of this spirit that is gone back to God?”

The answer to that question is to be found in Psa 104, where we read this:

Psa 104:24  O LORD, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches.
Psa 104:25  So is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts. 
Psa 104:26  There go the ships: there is that leviathan, whom thou hast made to play therein.
Psa 104:27  These wait all upon thee; that thou mayest give them their meat in due season. 
Psa 104:28  That thou givest them they gather: thou openest thine hand, they are filled with good.
Psa 104:29  Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled: thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust. 
Psa 104:30  Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created: and thou renewest the face of the earth.

The Hebrew word translated spirit in verse 30 is ‘ruach’, Strong’s number H7307. It happens to be the very same Hebrew word that is translated as ‘breath’ in the previous verse. So what we are really being told is that God takes away our spirit, and we die. We do not go to heaven as a so-called “immortal soul”. We are plainly told that “the soul that sinneth [all men] shall die” (Eze 18:4 and 20). So the state of the spirit of which you inquire is the same state it was in before any of us were created. We are plainly told that “You send forth your spirit, and they are created”. In other words we were not “created” before God ‘sent forth His spirit to give life to our physical created bodies.

This is made doubly clear in Ecc 3 where we read:

Ecc 3:18  I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts. 
Ecc 3:19  For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all is vanity.
Ecc 3:20  All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.
Ecc 3:21  Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?

Solomon tells us clearly “that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast:” Whe Solomon asks “Who knows” he is challenging the pagan idea and doctrine of an immortal soul, and he is revealing that men are no different than a beast as far as the spirit that is within them, and he informs us that “they all go to one place… the dust”.

Once again, because the translators of the King James Version of the scriptures believed in the false doctrine of an immortal soul, they translated the Hebrew word ‘ruach’ in verse 19 as ‘breath’, but they translate the very same Hebrew word ‘ruach’ as spirit when it suits their purpose in verse 21.

I hope all these verses of scripture help you to see that that state of the spirit that returns to God who gave it is the same state of the spirit it was in before God gave it to a physical body to give that body life. I hope you can now agree with the apostle Paul that without a resurrection they that have fallen asleep in Christ have perished because they are not a separate conscious spirit until that time of the resurrection of the dead.

1Co 15:16  For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised:
1Co 15:17  And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.
1Co 15:18  Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. 

The false doctrine of an immortal soul renders the biblical doctrine of a resurrection of the dead as little less than useless, because death is put on a par with judgment, and there is no further need for judgment after death according to the generally accepted doctrine of both the Protestant and the Catholic churches.

Your brother who lives in hope of the resurrection,

Mike