What Happens After Death? (13)

God's Word provides assurance of life after death—though not in a heavenly afterlife as thought by so many!

God promises that life will return through a resurrection of the dead. This is how mankind can receive His gift of eternal life.

In the first chapter we dealt with God's gift of physical life. In the second chapter we discussed death itself. We have learned that we are mortal; life is temporary. Now we will focus on what happens after death.

Even though our bodies are temporary, subject to decay and death, God has planned for us much more than just this limited, physical existence.

Thousands of years ago the patriarch Job asked the same question we ask ourselves: “If a man dies, shall he live again?” (Job 14:14). He went on to answer the question in stating to God: “All the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come. Thou shalt call, and I will answer thee” (verses 14-15, KJV). After death a person is unconscious, waiting for God to call him from the grave and restore him to life.

What does the Bible say about the remarkable phenomenon of restoration to life? When will it take place? What else happens at this time? Will the resurrected still be flesh and blood, or will they be brought back to a different kind of life?

The answers to these questions go to the core of the meaning of our existence. As we study the Bible to find the answers, we can be encouraged, motivated and inspired by God's plan for life after death.

The promise of the resurrection:

Paul, as we saw briefly in the last chapter, spoke of a great change that will take place when he referred to both the resurrection of the dead and the state of those who remain alive at the time of the resurrection at the return of Christ. A marvelous transformation must occur before we can receive the gift of eternal life. The dead in Christ will be resurrected to an “incorruptible” existence, and those in Christ who are still alive will be instantly changed from a mortal, physical existence to an incorruptible state.

Notice again Paul's description of this astounding event: “Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep [die], but we shall all be changed —in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed” (1 Corinthians 15:51-52).

As explained in the previous chapter, those who have died are unconscious, as if they are sleeping a dreamless sleep, awaiting their time to be called out of the grave and resurrected to a new life.

The period from the last moment of consciousness until they are awakened in the resurrection will seem as if no time had passed at all, just as if they were waking from sleep or from a coma.

Paul shows clearly that this resurrection will occur when Jesus Christ returns to the earth: “But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep [died], lest you sorrow as others who have no hope.

For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep.

“For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord” (1Thessalonians 4:13-17).

To be cont'd. 

God bless you all. 

What Happens After Death? (12)

The temporary existence that ends in death is not God's original purpose for mankind.

God gave us physical, temporary life. Since we are physical, we all eventually face death. This is no accident of evolution but came about as a result of circumstances knowable only from the Bible—involving decisions made by our first parents in the Garden of Eden.

In the beginning of God's plan for mankind, God made available to Adam and Eve His gift of eternal life represented by the tree of life (Genesis 2:9, 16). This tree represented choosing to believe in and obey God's revealed will, embracing His way of life.

The garden contained another tree as well, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (verse 9). This tree represented something altogether different—man choosing his own way of life rather than following God's revelation —deciding for himself what is good and evil.

Influenced by Satan, Adam and Eve made a fundamental choice that has affected humanity ever since. They chose to take of the wrong tree, eating the forbidden fruit. Refusing to believe and obey God, they came under the dominion of Satan and the penalty for sin—suffering and death (Genesis 2:17).

Had Adam and Eve taken of the tree of life, they would have received eternal life (Genesis 3:22). This is why, after they had made the wrong choice and had taken of the wrong tree, God had to cut them off from the tree of life “lest they live forever.” God could not allow them to live forever in their sinful, rebellious state.

Because of their disobedience, God told them of their sure fate: “You [shall] return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for dust you are, and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:19).

It is important to realize that God's original plan to give mankind eternal life, which was rejected by Adam and Eve, is available to each of us today as a result of God's personal calling.

Adam and Eve introduced sin to mankind, and all human beings springing from them are “appointed” to die because all have sinned (Romans 5:12; Hebrews 9:27). Yet God's purpose for mankind stands; His purpose to give mankind eternal life will succeed! Throughout the rest of the Bible we see the unfolding of God's plan of redemption—the purchase of mankind for a price. Man, we see, is able to be rescued from death because of the priceless shed blood of the Son of God, Jesus Christ.

The little-understood truth is that God's initial purpose for mankind is that he not die. The temporary existence that ends in death, bringing suffering and loss, is not God's original purpose for mankind. It is part of the curse for sin brought on humanity by the wrong choice made by our first parents, and all have chosen to follow that sinful way ever since (Romans 3:23).

To be cont'd. 

God bless you all. 

What Happens After Death? (11)

Despite widespread use of the phrase immortal soul, this terminology is found nowhere in the Bible. Where did the idea of an immortal soul originate?

The concept of the soul's supposed immortality was first taught in ancient Egypt and Babylon. “The belief that the soul continues in existence after the dissolution of the body is…speculation…nowhere expressly taught in Holy Scripture…The belief in the immortality of the soul came to the Jews from contact with Greek thought and chiefly through the philosophy of Plato, its principal exponent, who was led to it through Orphic and Eleusinian mysteries in which Babylonian and Egyptian views were strangely blended” ( Jewish Encyclopedia, 1941, Vol. 6, “Immortality of the Soul,” pp. 564, 566).

Plato (428-348 B.C.), the Greek philosopher and student of Socrates, taught that the body and the “immortal soul” separate at death. The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia comments on ancient Israel's view of the soul: “We are influenced always more or less by the Greek, Platonic idea that the body dies, yet the soul is immortal. Such an idea is utterly contrary to the Israelite consciousness and is nowhere found in the Old Testament” (1960, Vol. 2, “Death,” p. 812).

Early Christianity was influenced and corrupted by Greek philosophies as it spread through the Greek and Roman world. By A.D. 200 the doctrine of the immortality of the soul became a controversy among Christian believers.

The Evangelical Dictionary of Theology notes that Origen, an early and influential Catholic theologian, was influenced by Greek thinkers: “Speculation about the soul in the subapostolic church was heavily influenced by Greek philosophy. This is seen in Origen's acceptance of Plato's doctrine of the preexistence of the soul as pure mind (nous ) originally, which, by reason of its fall from God, cooled down to soul (psyche ) when it lost its participation in the divine fire by looking earthward” (1992, “Soul,” p. 1037).

Secular history reveals that the concept of the immortality of the soul is an ancient belief embraced by many pagan religions. But it's not a biblical teaching and is not found in either the Old or New Testaments.

To be cont'd. 

God bless you all. 

What Happens After Death? ( 10)

Revelation 6:9-10: Souls of slain crying out?

“When He opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held. And they cried with a loud voice, saying, 'How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?'” (Revelation 6:9-10).

To understand this scripture, we must remember the context. John was witnessing a vision while he was “in the Spirit” (Revelation 4:2). Under inspiration he was seeing future events depicted in symbolism. The fifth seal is figurative of the Great Tribulation, a time of world turmoil preceding Christ's return. In this vision, John sees under the altar the martyred believers who sacrificed their lives for their faith in God. These souls figuratively cry out, “Avenge our blood!” This can be compared to Abel's blood metaphorically crying out to God from the ground (Genesis 4:10). Though neither dead souls nor blood can actually speak, these phrases figuratively demonstrate that a God of justice will not forget the evil deeds of mankind perpetrated against His righteous followers.

This verse does not describe living souls that have gone to heaven. The Bible confirms that “no one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven [Jesus Christ]” (John 3:13). Even righteous King David, a man after God's own heart (Acts 13:22), was described by Peter as being “dead and buried” (Acts 2:29), not alive in heaven or some other state or location (verse 34).

To be cont'd. 

God bless you all. 

What Happens After Death? ( 9)

Do Some Bible Verses Teach That We Have an Immortal Soul?

Some believe that various scriptures support belief in an immortal soul. Let's consider some of these passages and understand what they really say.

Matthew:10:28: Destroying soul and body in hell?

"And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell" (Matthew:10:28).

Is Jesus teaching in this verse that the soul lives on after death and is immortal? Not at all. If you look at this scripture closely, you see that Jesus is actually saying that the soul can be destroyed. Jesus is here warning about the judgment of God. He says not to fear those who can destroy only the physical human body ( soma in the Greek), but fear Him (God) who is also able to destroy the soul ( psuche )—here denoting the person's physical being with its consciousness.

Simply stated, Christ was showing that when one man kills another the resulting death is only temporary; God can raise anyone to conscious life again either soon after death (see Matthew:9:23-25

; 27:52; John:11:43-44
; Acts:9:40-41
; 20:9-11) or in the age to come after Christ returns to the earth. The person who has died is not ultimately gone forever. We must have a proper fear of God, who alone can remove one's physical life and all possibility of any later resurrection to life. When God destroys one in "hell," that person's destruction is permanent.

What is the "hell" spoken of in this verse? The Greek word used here is gehenna, which comes from the combination of two Hebrew words, gai and hinnom, meaning "Valley of Hinnom." The term originally referred to a valley on the south side of Jerusalem in which pagan deities were worshipped.

Because of its reputation as an abominable place, it later became a garbage dump where refuse was burned. Gehenna became synonymous with "a place of burning"—a site used to dispose of useless things.

Only God can utterly destroy human existence and eliminate any hope of a resurrection. The Scriptures teach that God will in the future burn up the incorrigibly wicked in an all-consuming fire, turning them to ashes (Malachi:4:3)—annihilating them forever.

1 Thessalonians:5:23: Spirit, soul and body?

Many are confused by an expression the apostle Paul uses in one of his letters to the Thessalonians: "Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Thessalonians:5:23).

What does Paul mean by the phrase "spirit, soul, and body"?

By "spirit" ( pneuma ), Paul means the non-material component that is joined to the physical human brain to form the human mind. This spirit is not conscious of itself. Rather, it gives the brain the ability to reason, create and analyze our existence (see also Job:32:8; 1 Corinthians:2:11). By "soul" ( psuche ), Paul means the person's physical being with its consciousness. By "body" ( soma ), Paul means a physical body of flesh. In short, Paul wished for the whole person, including the mind, vitality of conscious life and physical body, to be sanctified and blameless.

To be cont'd. 

God bless you all. 

What Happens After Death? ( 8)

Is the spirit in man the immortal soul?

Earlier we noted a special spiritual aspect of the human mind that gives us our intellectual abilities, separating us from animals in function and purpose (see 1 Corinthians:2:11).

What we've seen so far is that the Bible shows a dead person is in no way immortal; his life has perished. So what happens to the spiritual essence that separates man from animal? Does it continue as a conscious, immortal soul independent of the physical body? Certainly not!

The Bible shows that the spirit in man, which originally came from the Creator God, returns to Him. "Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it" (Ecclesiastes:12:7). This spirit that returns to God is neither the source of human life, nor is it human consciousness. Life and consciousness both perish when one dies. God does not tell us why this spirit returns to Him, just that it does. This may be the way God preserves the characteristics of each person until the resurrection.

The truth is that man has no spiritual soul with conscious awareness independent of the physical body. This has been proven time and time again when individuals have gone into comas for weeks, months and sometimes years at a time, only to emerge from that comatose state with no memory or recollection of the passage of time.

If one had a soul that existed independently of the human body, wouldn't that soul have some memory of remaining aware during the months or years the body was unconscious? That would be powerful and logical proof of the existence of an independent soul within the human body—yet no one has ever reported any such thing, in spite of thousands of such occurrences.

Summary

In this chapter we have considered the mystery of death. The good news is that it doesn't have to be a mystery. The scriptures we have reviewed make clear that a human being is a mortal soul and does not possess an im mortal soul. Upon death, life ceases. It does not continue in some other form; a dead person does not transmigrate to be reincarnated as another being.

Since the time of Adam and Eve, all people have died a physical death—even Jesus Christ. But death is not the end. As Paul wrote, "For as in Adam all die, even so in Christall shall be made alive" (1 Corinthians:15:22). Even though our life is temporary, God has not left us without hope and a greater purpose for living.

Another vital step we have mentioned here and will take up more fully in the next chapter, the resurrection, brings us from death back to life.

To be cont'd. 

God bless you all.