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almondBranch
Member



Joined: 2003/10/6
Posts: 91
Tralee, Ireland

 What happens at death?

What is everyones understanding of what happens at death? to the believer and to the unbeliever.

How does it tie in with the ressurection and future judgements.


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Stuart

 2003/10/29 16:58Profile
Zapthycat
Member



Joined: 2003/8/5
Posts: 75
Livermore, CA

 Re: What happens at death?

Well... Jesus says in the story of Lazarus and the rich man that the rightous go to "Abrahams bosom" and the unrightous go to hell.

I think many people just assume that we are judged and to go Heaven or hell.

Then again, the bible also says "The dead in Christ shall rise first" and "The sea and hell gave up the dead which were in them".

Basically, I'm not totally sure, and I don't look into it too much, since I don't believe it is a salvational issue :)


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J. Wilson

 2003/10/29 20:57Profile
almondBranch
Member



Joined: 2003/10/6
Posts: 91
Tralee, Ireland

 Re:

Hi Zapthycat, I agree that its not an issue upon which our salvation hangs, however i do believe we are here for so much more than just "being saved" we are here to be conformed to the image of Christ, and learning the ways of our God is one of the ways that that transformation happens. I don't mean to suggest that merely studying "dry doctrine" is what causes us to grow or that God is pleased with us just because we have all our doctrines straight. But I believe that God has set some of these things before us for us to search them out.

The reason I started this thread is because for many years I had a very standard belief in the after life, christians die and go to heaven, enter into their reward and are reunited with saved loved ones. I believed the purpose of the ressurection was to merely give us a new body.

In the last couple of years I have been realy examining the whole subject and suspect that there is alot more to the ressurection than I had previously thought.

In 1 cor 15 paul places such a huge emphasis on the ressurection, the normal evangelical mindset (at least in my experience) has been that Christ died and rose again to ensure that you go to heaven when you die. However paul says that without the ressurection our hope is in vain, he seems to imply that without the ressurection our hope is limited to this life.

Anyway, there are many scriptures to be examined, but my belief at this time is that if I were to die right now, my next conscious thought would be the ressurection. I don't believe that I would cease to exisit in the interm but that I would be "asleep" in Jesus.

I am not a SDA or Jehovah's Witness by the way, nor am I dogmatic about this, as I said I have only been looking inot it over the last couple of years. But I think it would be usefull to discuss the subject for a bit here. I ove disccusing things like this with believers who are honest in their handling of the scriptures and are willing to admit as Philiologos says WKIP (we know in part).

On a final note, whatever your beliefs are, the scripture speaks far more on ressurection than on going to heaven. How many sermons do you hear preached in gatherings today on ressurection? I met christians recently who had been walking with the Lord for 3 years and didn't even know that there was a ressurection! Yet Hebrews 6 lists it as one of the basics.

Looking unto him, Stuart


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Stuart

 2003/10/30 5:22Profile
crsschk
Member



Joined: 2003/6/11
Posts: 9192
Santa Clara, CA

 Re: What happens at death?

Quote:
Anyway, there are many scriptures to be examined, but my belief at this time is that if I were to die right now, my next conscious thought would be the ressurection. I don't believe that I would cease to exisit in the interm but that I would be "asleep" in Jesus.



Are we talking about the biblical "asleep"...As in dead?
Absent from the body present with the Lord.

Going back to the Lazurus illustration, it appears to me that when we die, we are still fully conscious, able to converse and have recall of our memory.
Quote:
my next conscious thought would be the ressurection


Little confused by what you mean here.

Somewhat familiar with SDA teachings on this subject, which for the life of me I don't understand how they can extract "soul sleep" out of scriptures.

Anyway, perhaps you or someone else could elaborate more and clarify some of these things.


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Mike Balog

 2003/10/30 7:54Profile
almondBranch
Member



Joined: 2003/10/6
Posts: 91
Tralee, Ireland

 Re:

Quote:
Are we talking about the biblical "asleep"...As in dead?



Yes but the scriptures don't speak simply of dead bodies being raised it speaks of [u]the dead[/u] being raised. How can you refer to a person who is in conscious bliss as being dead? or even asleep? Sleep seems a strange metaphor for the concious enjoyment of the Lord's prescence in Heaven.

In regards to Lazarus and the rich man, I am not going to build a doctrine on a parable, I believe that parables are generaly for the purpose of teaching one major truth and the truth pf this parable seems to me that those who had enjoyed the riches of God's covenant (the jews) would be excluded and as good as dead where as the beggars on the outside (the gentiles) would be gatherd into the promises of Abraham. Salvation isn't given to those who are literaly beggars simply on the merit that they missed out on the good things of this life nor is it refused to the rich for the opposite reason. to take that parable literaly would also mean you have to believe that the dead in "hell" have their tongues still in their mouths and they are crying out for a drink.

The wicked will be judged after the ressurection and then cast into the lake of fire. If they are in torment now then they are suffering before they are judged and the question would need to be asked "why raise them again so that they can be judged again and then cast into the lake of fire?"

As to where one can get the idea that the dead are not conscious you could consider these:

psalm 115:17 The dead praise not the LORD, neither any that go down into silence.

Ps 6:5 For in death there is no remembrance of thee: In Sheol who shall give thee thanks?

Ps 88:10 Wilt thou show wonders to the dead? Shall they that are deceased arise and praise thee?

Rev 20:5 But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished.
(not that they lived somwhere else, the lived not)

Ecc 9:5,6 For the living know that they die, and the dead know not anything, and there is no more to them a reward, for their remembrance hath been forgotten. Their love also, their hatred also, their envy also, hath already perished, and they have no more a portion to the age in all that hath been done under the sun. (Young's literal)

People regularly dismiss Ecclesiastes as being the opinions of a depressed King but it is part of the Word of God. Yes it is written from a certain perspective but still true. I believe nothing less than the ressurection can reverse the situation described in the above verses.

Death is the opposite of life, not life in another place, surely?

Stuart








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Stuart

 2003/10/30 10:38Profile
crsschk
Member



Joined: 2003/6/11
Posts: 9192
Santa Clara, CA

 Re:

Thanks almondBranch,

Good point's, some things to take into consideration and perhaps I jumped the gun there a bit (have a tendency to do that).

But could you gives us an idea of what you think happens, elaborate more on what you mean by "asleep" in the Lord, what does that mean to you...What is going on between the time that we cease breathing, physical death, and while we are awaiting our ressurection bodies?


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Mike Balog

 2003/10/30 11:51Profile
almondBranch
Member



Joined: 2003/10/6
Posts: 91
Tralee, Ireland

 Re:

Quote:
could you gives us an idea of what you think happens, elaborate more on what you mean by "asleep" in the Lord, what does that mean to you...What is going on between the time that we cease breathing, physical death, and while we are awaiting our ressurection bodies?



Don't know! 8-)

This is involves some conjecture on my part, but here goes:

Man is made of dust (his body), when a spirit is breathed into that body by God he becomes a living soul (Obviuosly I am refering to the initial creation here). I believe that it is our soul that gives us consciousness and our spirt that gives us life but our spirit in and of itself is not conscious. When we die our bodies are buried in the ground and our spirit returns to God who gave it, since the soul came into being through the union of spirit and body it doesn't exist in the interim or at best is said to be in hades or sheol (the unseen, literaly).

At the ressurection our spirits are breathed back into our bodies, which of course are long since decayed but these are now glorified bodies fashioned after the image of Christ's body hence we once again are conscious and alive but now in a glorifed body free from all the effects of sin and death, thank God. Thus it is truly a ressurection from the dead not just a resucitation of our bodies. It is literaly the dead being made alive.

There is much that for me is to hard to grasp but I do believe tht God, being the creator of time, dwells outside time, although he has also enterd into time which he created. Could it be that there is no intermediate "time" between death and resurection, yes there is from our side but perhaps when one dies in 2003 for example and their spirit returns to God he merley sends that spirit forward to the moment of ressurection whenever that will be. Thats quite a speculation I know and I am by no means certain that that is the way it is, do enjoy looking at these things though. A year is the length of time that it takes for the earth to go around the sun, do we really believe that time in heaven is the same as time on earth surely its entirely differnt, one day one thousand years etc.

We are very individualistic in our thining, and so perhaps it suits us to think of each believer entering into his/her reward seperatly. But the body of Christ is corporate so I believe it is God's wil for us to enter in together.

1Thess 4:14-17 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also that are fallen asleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we that are alive, that are left unto the coming of the Lord, shall in no wise precede them that are fallen asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven, with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we that are alive, that are left, shall together with them be caught up in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

Stuart


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Stuart

 2003/10/30 13:20Profile









 Re:

What the Bible says about the afterlife is conflicting and vague. Read the book, "OLD SOULS : The Scientific Evidence for Past Lives" by Thomas Shroder, an award winning journalist. It provides a significant, and very difficult to refute, body of evidence for reincarnation. This is largely children remembering things from previous lives in other cultures and then proving that the remembered details are accurate. Kids could not just make these stories up.

Furthermore, there is no incompatibility between Christianity and reincarnation, and perhaps on judgement day we will be judged on how well we progress through numerous lives, rather than this one only. Otherwise, all of those born before Jesus or in societies where he is unknown would be condemned. A just God would not do this.


 2003/10/30 15:22
philologos
Member



Joined: 2003/7/18
Posts: 6566
Reading, UK

 Re:

HI Jake
How about this?
Heb 9:27 "it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment".

The Bible does not hold a single verse in support of reincarnation and this one verse from Hebrews kills it dead. Neither is it a solitary example as there are many statements that make reincarnation utterly incompatible with the Bible revelation.


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Ron Bailey

 2003/10/30 16:22Profile
philologos
Member



Joined: 2003/7/18
Posts: 6566
Reading, UK

 Re:

Hi All
I think I can see a case for 'body' sleep but not 'soul' sleep.
Strange things happen when eternity and time touch. The disciples saw Moses on the mount of transguration although we know he was dead and buried. How did he come to be in resurrection body before the general resurrection?

Here's my hypothesis. Here on earth we are generally time-bound and things happen in a linear fashion. We get so used to yesterday, today, tomorrow that it is almost impossible for us to sustain the thought that it will not always be like that. When we 'sleep' (Christians never die) our loved ones, living in time, are conscious of our departure. However the moment we pass from time and arrive in eternity 'time' may behave very differently. We say 'he's gone'; but do they say 'he's arrived'? Or was he 'always there' in a timeless eternity?

To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord, but the gospels seem to show that people just did not remain 'dead' 'in the presence of the Lord'.

I recall the conversation between Martha and the Lord. Martha says 'I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day'. Martha, 'time-bound', can only think linear. Christ says "I am the resurrection.. whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die" The eternal 'I am' lives in the 'now'. Where Christ is, the resurrection is 'now' not 'in the last day'.

If anyone understand this post I would be grateful if you would explain it to me! ;-)


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Ron Bailey

 2003/10/30 16:45Profile





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