Across the street from where I’m staying
in Boston, a skeleton is trying to climb through an open second-story window.
Two other skeletons are climbing onto the
porch. A fetching
auburn-colored wig seems to suggest one of the skeletons is a female. She and
her friend appear to be trying to gain access to the house by taking a more
direct route through the front door.
The porch of the house is festooned with
enormous spider webs. Ghosts decorate the
scene. At night, giant
glowing eyes stare out of two windows.
You get the idea. It’s Halloween.
Further up the street, a giant skull
adorns the gate to another residence. A small imitation
graveyard contains gravestones saying “Rest in Pieces,” “I’ll be Back,” and
“Come, Join Me.” A few blocks away, a
family has what the sign calls a “Zombie Party” going on in their front yard. Several
skeletons appear to be climbing out of the ground.
A couple of blocks over is the most
incredible front-yard Halloween display I’ve ever witnessed. The
front yard is a veritable forest of Halloween paraphernalia, and the house
is decorated like I’ve never seen. Voices call from
somewhere in the midst of mayhem, invitations to join the deceased and to “be
very afraid.”
But it’s all fun, isn’t it? Kids of
all ages enjoy dressing up in costumes, and some Halloween costumes are fun and
creative. Trick or
treating is a long-established and much-loved American tradition.
Happy Halloween, right? Wrong. The
“harmless fun” Halloween represents for many people is predicated upon a lie,
and exists to perpetuate a lie. Fun isn’t really the
point of Halloween. Halloween is a
celebration of spiritualism, the belief that the spirits of the dead survive
bodily death and communicate with or even taunt the living. Scary!
But the fact is that Halloween is all
bark and no bite. Halloween revels in
the idea that the dead come back to life, that the dead haunt houses, and that
immediately beyond death is life in another realm. The truth is, that’s
not the truth. There’s not a single
reason to be afraid at Halloween.
Why? Because the last
person who can trouble you, frighten you, or haunt your house is a dead person. The
Bible is plain about this.
Writing in the book of Ecclesiastes,
Solomon stated, “For the living know that they will die, but the dead know
nothing.” 9:5. Far from being interested
in climbing through your upstairs window, the dead are oblivious to anything at
all.
No, the dead aren’t in heaven praising
God. The Bible is
unequivocal on that point. “The dead do not
praise the Lord, nor any who go down into silence.” Psalmo 115:17.
Paul taught that the
dead sleep—see 1 Corinthians 15:51-55, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18—and he did so
plainly. Those who teach that
humans possess an immortal soul or a soul that survives bodily death, owe their
belief system more to Plato than to the Bible.
The creation story teaches—again,
plainly—that human beings were not given a soul but that Adam was created as “a
living soul” (Genesis 2:7, KJV). Without
a soul that survives bodily death, we are left to conclude that the dead—who
don’t praise the Lord and who know “nothing”—are not prowling around
neighborhoods, or graveyards, or attempting to climb through second-floor
windows on Halloween. They’re asleep. Should
a person be afraid of the dead, of ghosts, and ghouls? No. Not in
the slightest.
Vampires? No, of course not. Zombies? No. Things
that go bump in the night? That depends on what
those “things” are. But you can be certain they’re not the spirits of the
dead.
Jesus Himself let all the air out of the
Halloween balloon when He spoke to His disciples about their friend Lazarus. Jesus said: “Our
friend Lazarus sleeps, but I go that I may wake him up.” The disciples were
confused by this, “Then Jesus
said to them plainly, ‘Lazarus is dead’” (John 11:11–14).
The Bible is consistent. The
dead sleep until the resurrection day. Remember Jesus’ words: “I will
raise him up at the last day” (John 6:44). Jesus
made clear the righteous will be “repaid at the resurrection of the just” (Luke
14:14). If someone were to survive bodily
death and go immediately to heaven, they would be “repaid” long before “the
resurrection of the just.”
Halloween is a toothless tiger, and
exists to perpetuate one of Satan’s biggest lies—the lie that the dead aren’t
really dead. It’s an untruth that
is setting people up for massive deception before the return of Jesus.
As Halloween comes and goes for another
year, keep in mind what the Bible teaches about death. The key to life beyond
this life is Jesus, “the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25). Without
Jesus, nobody comes forth from the grave. With Jesus, “the dead
in Christ shall rise” (1 Thessalonians 4:16). Our hope for life
after this life is faith in Him.
And that’s nothing to be afraid of!
John Bradshaw
