Editor’s Note: Here begins a section of 24 objections to the Seventh-day Adventist doctrine of soul sleep, or the non-immortality of the soul. Adventists believe that there is no consciousness in death (Eccl. 9:5-6; Job 14:21; Psalm 146:4). Death is but a dreamless sleep in the grave until the resurrection; the saved are resurrected at the Second Coming of Christ (1 Cor. 15:51-58; 1 Thess. 4:15-18) and are taken to heaven for the Millennium; the lost are resurrected after the millennium, when the New Jerusalem descends to the earth (Rev. 20:5-6; 3:12; 21:2-3).
Objection 69: When Christ was transfigured there appeared with Him on the mount "Moses and Elijah talking with him." (Matt. 17:3) The fact that Moses was there proves that man has an immortal soul, for Moses died and was buried at the time of the Exodus.
There are two ways to view this transfiguration incident: as a vision or as a real physical event. If it was a vision, then the objection before us is pointless: The nature of a vision is that the things being shown are not actually before the one being shown the vision. They are like a movie or video shown to the prophet to teach him about past or future events, or events then happening elsewhere, but they are not actually taking place within the view of the prophet.
We do not think the story of the Mount of Transfiguration is describing a vision, but rather the real appearance of flesh and blood men who were physically present with Jesus. There is nothing in the story about an immaterial spirit or disembodied soul hovering beside Christ. Instead, we read that Christ was present, and beside Him were “Moses and Elijah.” We know that Christ was physically real, that the Word was indeed made flesh (John 1:14). Why would we not believe that both Moses and Elijah were also there in the flesh?
We know that Elijah was translated bodily to heaven (2 Kings 2). So even if one believes that, after one dies, one continues on as a disembodied consciousness, there is no need of that hypothesis in the case of Elijah. He was translated while alive in his living body. And although Moses died and was buried, Jude 9 tells as that Michael the archangel (who is believed to be Christ) contended with Satan for his body. The presence of Moses on the mount of transfiguration helps us to understand the real meaning of the passage:
"Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, dared not bring against him a railing accusation. But said, The Lord rebuke thee." Jude 1:9.
Further, the disciples evidently must have considered Moses to be as truly real as the other two, for Peter wished to build three tabernacles or shelters, “one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” (Mat. 17:4) Housing is not built for immaterial spirits, but rather for our frail living flesh, which needs shelter.
In his famous Bible commentary, the Methodist commentator Adam Clarke makes an interesting point about this story, to wit, that Moses and Elijah demonstrated two ways of receiving a glorified body; (1) by being translated without seeing death, as in the case of Elijah, or (2) by dying but then later being resurrected and given a glorified body, as in the case of Moses. Perhaps one of the purposes of the story is to show us that both routes lead to the same end result:
"Elijah came from heaven in the same body which he had upon earth, for he was translated, and did not see death, 2 Kings 2:11. And the body of Moses was probably raised again (Jude 9), as a pledge of the resurrection; and as Christ is to come to judge the quick and the dead, for we shall not all die, but all shall be changed, 1 Cor. 15:51-2. He probably gave the full representation of this in the person of Moses, who died, and was thus raised to life (or appeared now as he shall appear when raised from the dead in the last day), and in the person of Elijah, who never lasted death. Both their bodies exhibit the same appearance, to show that the bodies of glorified saints are the same, whether the person had been translated, or whether he had died."
Properly understood, the story of the transfiguration provides support not for the doctrine of immortal souls freed from a body, but rather for the teaching that the redeemed dead will be resurrected with glorified but very real bodies.