past ages the
apostle says:

"These all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not
the promise: God having provided some better thing for us, that they
without us should not be made perfect." Heb. 11:39, 40.

They are waiting, that all together the saved may enter in. And the time
of waiting is but an instant to those who "sleep in Jesus."

David was a man of God, but the apostle Peter, speaking by the Spirit on
the day of Pentecost, declared to the people of the city of David: "He
is both dead and buried, and his sepulcher is with us unto this day....
For David is not ascended into the heavens." Acts 2:29-34. They without
us have not been made perfect. They are all awaiting that glad day
toward which the apostle Paul turned the last look of his mortal vision:

"I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the
faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness,
which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day: and not
to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing." 2 Tim. 4:7,
8.

What joy in that day to march in through the gates into the eternal
city, with Adam, and Abel, and Noah, and Abraham, and Paul, and all the
faithful, and the loved ones of our own home circles, and dear comrades
in service, every one clothed with immortality, the gift of God in
Christ Jesus our Redeemer! Horatius Bonar's hymn sings the joyful hope
as the loved are laid away to "sleep in Jesus:"

"Softly within that peaceful resting place
We lay their wearied limbs, and bid the clay
Press lightly on them till the night be past,
And the far east give note of coming day.

"The shout is heard, the Archangel's voice goes forth;
The trumpet sounds, the dead awake and sing;
The living put on glory; one glad band,
They hasten up to meet their coming King."

In a word, the Scripture teaches that God alone has immortality, that
man is mortal, that death is a sleep, that life after death comes only
by the resurrection of the last day, that the righteous are then given
immortality. Further, the Scripture teaches that later there will be a
resurrection of the unjust, not unto life, but unto death, the second
death, from which there is no release.

Every doctrine of Scripture and of the gospel is in accord with this
Bible teaching as to man's nature and his state in death. But the
traditional view of the natural immortality o