Another reason why the Old
Testament contains no formal argument in proof of immortality and a spiritual
world beyond this is because the intercourse with that world in the past of the
Old Testament saints and inspired prophets was so immediate and constant. God
was not only present to their believing minds and hearts, in his paternal and
gracious character, but, in addition to this, he was frequently manifesting
himself in theophanies and visions. We should not expect that a person who was continually
communing with God would construct arguments to prove his existence or that one
who was brought into contact with the unseen and spiritual world by
supernatural phenomena and messages from it would take pains to demonstrate
that there is such a world. The Old Testament saints “endured as seeing the
invisible.” (William G. T. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology: Complete and
Unabridged, Volumes 1-3 [Reformed Retrieval, 2021], 740)
