With so many religions claiming to know what happens to us after our earthly body dies, I thought I might give some biblical perspectives on this subject. I do not expect to settle any of the arguments, I am only expressing what I believe the Bible teaches on life after the death of the human body. So for the next few articles I will be writing about this subject.
Paul wrote, “Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13). Paul had taught the people in the church of Thessalonica concerning the coming again of Jesus Christ and the establishing of God’s Kingdom on this earth. A glorious truth and a blessed hope for all Christians! But since Paul had been there some of the members had died, and the others were grieving because they thought that those who had died had missed the coming of Jesus and the glorious kingdom of God.
So Paul wrote to the Thessalonian believers to correct their misconceptions concerning those who were asleep in Christ. And the mistake of many people is that they think that the term “asleep in Christ” is talking about soul sleep, but it is only a figure of speech used to describe the physical death of a person’s human body. A good example of this is when Jesus came to the house of Jairus and told him not to be afraid, but just believe. Jesus said that the little girl isn’t dead, she is only sleeping and the people laughed at Him, but then he raised the little girl’s body from the dead (Matthew 5:35-43).
Another example is when Jesus and His disciples received a message from Mary and Martha saying Lazarus is dying. And He stayed a couple more days at the river before he started on His journey to see Lazarus, and while He and His disciples were talking He told them that Lazarus was asleep. The disciples said that would be good, that will help him get better, but Jesus was referring to the fact that Lazarus’ human body had died.
The phrase “and he slept with his fathers” is used many times in the Old Testament referring to someone who has died, but this does not imply soul sleep doctrine. The prophet Samuel’s human body had died, so king Saul asked the witch of Endor to raise up the spirit of Samuel to ask him what to do concerning the Philistines, and Samuel’s spirit spoke to Saul (Read 1 Samuel 28:1-20). Samuel’s body may have died, but his spirit was alive and well. Notice that Samuel’s spirit said, “Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?” Not down from heaven, but up from the place the Old Testament calls the grave, or Sheol. In the New Testament it is called Hades, or hell.
At the beginning of His ministry Jesus said, “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners” (Luke 4:18-19). And I believe that here is one of the keys to what happened to those who died before Jesus came to this earth and died on the Cross for the sins of all those who have put their faith in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.
When the rich man and a beggar named Lazarus both died, the beggar was carried by angels to Abraham’s bosom, but the rich man went to hell, where he was in torment. So he called to Abraham and said, “Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.” But Abraham said, “There is a great chasm that is fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us” (read Luke 16:19-31). Jesus speaks of Lazarus as being in a conscious state mind in comfort in Abraham’s bosom, and the rich man being in a conscious state of mind in torment in hell. The implication is that at this time in history, hell was divided into two compartments, one for the righteous dead and the other for the unrighteous dead.
Some want to pass this off as a parable, but there is no reason for that, because never in a parable is anyone ever named. And even if it is a parable, the purpose of a parable is to illustrate a truth. And if what Jesus said is not the truth, then how can you illustrate a truth with a lie. And what was Jesus trying to illustrate? Jesus said to the Sadducees, “But about the resurrection of the dead—have you not read what God said to you, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?’ He is not the God of the dead but of the living” (Matthew 22:31-32).
Some of the Pharisees and teachers of the Law asked Jesus for a miraculous sign. Jesus answered them, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matthew 12:38-40). Jesus is referring to those three days and three nights that He would descend into the heart of the earth, into the place the Old Testament knows as Sheol (Deuteronomy 32:22, Psalm 16:10, etc).
And what did He go there for? “He went and preached to the spirits in prison” (1 Peter 3:19). And to proclaim His victory over satanic powers, “And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the Cross (Colossians 2:15). More next time.