WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE DIE?
Greetings church family!
It is rarely fun to talk about death. It’s usually a topic we’d rather avoid. With that in mind, many theories about life after death permeate our society. Some believe that after you die, (to quote Porky Pig) that’s all folks! They believe, since there is not a Creator or Intelligent Designer, your existence is random, and after you die, nothing else happens. Others believe that you don’t really die, you just return to life in another form - maybe as a tree or as a giraffe. This is known as reincarnation. Still others believe that there is a creator God, and that if you are saved by Jesus, you will go to heaven immediately after death. They also believe that if you are not saved by Jesus, you will either go to purgatory (a state of purification one goes through before going to heaven) or directly to hell.
So here’s the question? Does the Bible support any of the theories above? Church family, God loves you beyond belief. He loves you so much that He wants you to know the truth on this subject. Let’s look at what God says in His Word.
What makes up a living being?
First, Genesis 1:1 states “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” Furthermore, Genesis 2:7 says “Then the Lord God formed the man out of the dust from the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being.”
Genesis reveals to us that we were given life by God, and that a living being consists of two elements - the dust that forms our body, and the breath of life that brings the body to life. In the world of beverages, you don’t have an Arnold Palmer unless both lemonade and iced tea are mixed together. Apart from each other, there is no Arnold Palmer. This applies to living beings as well. The body plus the breath equals life. Apart from each other, there is no living being.
What happens when the body and the breath are separated? In Ecclesiastes 12:6-7, King Solomon urges his readers to remember their Creator before they die. In doing so, he refers to death using several metaphors. The text says, “Remember your Creator before the silver cord is loosed, or the golden bowl is broken, or the pitcher shattered at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the well.” This same passage now ends with a literal description of death. It finishes, saying “Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it.” So, at death, the dust (our body) returns to the ground while our spirit (the breath of life) returns to God.
Are humans inherently immortal?
Now let’s look at Genesis 2:8-9. It says, “The Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he placed the man he had formed. The Lord God caused to grow out of the ground every tree pleasing in appearance and good for food, including the tree of life in the middle of the garden, as well as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”
Notice that God provides a tree of life for man inside of the garden of Eden. Why is this necessary? This is because human beings (even before sin became our reality) are not inherently immortal. We do not naturally have the ability to live forever. Adam and Eve needed to eat from the tree of life consistently in order to stay alive forever. They were barred from eating from the tree of life once they distrusted God and disobeyed his command to refrain from eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. God spoke of the result of their obedience in Genesis 2:16-17 and Genesis 3:22-24. The former passage says, “And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree of the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die.” The latter passage states, “The Lord God said, “Since the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, he must not reach out, take from the tree of life, eat, and live forever.” So the Lord God sent him away from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove the man out and stationed the cherubim and the flaming, whirling sword east of the garden of Eden to guard the way to the tree of life.”
The first lie
With the two aforementioned ideas as context, we can conclude that there is no life immediately after death. Human beings are not inherently immortal, and, due to sin, will experience death because of our lack of access to the tree of life. Our bodies will return to the ground, and our breath will return to God.
Why is this so important to understand? For one, the devil’s first lie is in regards to humans and eternal life. Genesis 3:1-4 says, "Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You can’t eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden. But about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, ‘You must not eat it or touch it, or you will die.’” “No! You will certainly not die,” the serpent said to the woman.”
“You will certainly not die!” This is not only the devil’s first lie, but one he continues to perpetuate even today. It is this lie that propagates the ideas that when you die, you just come back as another living entity, or that when you die, you go to heaven (to live forever) or to hell (to burn forever). Satan uses the idea of an eternally burning hell to paint a cruel and vicious picture of God. Romans 6:23 is clear that “the wages of sin is death.” This means that sin brings life to an end. The fires of hell will NOT burn forever.
Also, this lie leads many to believe that they are not dependent on God for life. However, Genesis is clear that God is the originator of life. Furthermore, John 3:16 reminds us that, in regards to Jesus, “whosoever believes in Him will not perish, but have everlasting life.” There is no everlasting life without Jesus.
Finally, the devil’s lie “You will not certainly die” opens the door for spiritualism. Spiritualism is a system of belief or religious practice based on supposed communication with the spirits of the dead, especially through mediums. If one believes that humans don’t die, the devil can deceive them into believing that ghosts and spirits of their dead loved ones actually exist. Not only this, but that they can communicate with their loved ones. All the while, they don’t realize that it isn’t their dead loved ones they are talking to, rather they are communicating with demons.
The good news!
The best news about death is that Jesus defeated the power of death when He resurrected! In Revelation 1:17b-18, Jesus says, “Don’t be afraid. I am the First and the Last, and the Living One. I was dead, but look—I am alive forever and ever, and I hold the keys of death and Hades.” Jesus Christ’s resurrection from the grave was the turning point in human history - where our destiny changed from death eternal to life eternal. Jesus says so in John 3:36, where we read, “The one who believes in the Son has eternal life.” 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 tells us what happens to the dead in Christ at Jesus 2nd coming. It says, “For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the archangel’s voice, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are still alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.”
What happens to those who die on this earth and choose not to trust Jesus as their salvation? You’ll have to come to the Foothills Community Church on Sabbath, March 15 to hear the sermon that covers that question - our final sermon in the Love Wins sermon series. In the meantime, what a privilege it is to know that God refused to abandon us to death! What a privilege it is to know that God is for us, God is with us, and God loves us!!
Pastor Chris
