An organ softly plays “Amazing Grace” as a flower-covered casket is wheeled down the center aisle of the church. All around, relatives and friends brush away tears. They’re certain of one thing: someone they love is no longer there to see, to touch, to talk to.
Death is a reality no one can evade, yet most people are unsure about what death means and what, if anything, comes afterward. The world’s great religions offer a variety of teachings on death—from an afterlife of eternal bliss to eternal torment to an endless cycle of reincarnations. Meanwhile, many skeptics and atheists expect nothing more than nonexistence after death has closed their eyes.
It’s no wonder people hate and fear death. Death separates loved ones, divides families, and offers no certainty of future reunion. But what does God’s Word say about death? You may be surprised to discover what the Bible says about this important subject because it’s not what many Christians believe and teach.
The apostle Paul felt that we should be and can be certain about what happens after death. He wrote to the Christians in Thessalonica, “We do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13).
Can we know what happens after death? The Bible says we can!
no immortal soul
The popular premise—the one that’s probably in the minds of many mourners at funerals—is that human beings are composed of two parts: a physical body and a “spirit” or “soul” that somehow lives on after the body has died. Most people believe that at death, the body stays in the grave, but the human “soul” goes on to heaven or to hell, depending on the kind of life the person lived on this earth. Many also believe that this “spirit” can interact with the living.
Yet this popular idea—that human beings are made up of a physical body and an immortal soul—is not biblical at all. It’s an ancient pagan idea that was adopted by the Christian church long after the Bible was written. The Bible presents quite a different explanation of what makes up a human being.
In the Bible, the word soul is translated from either the Hebrew word nephesh or the Greek psyche. (The Old Testament was written in Hebrew, and the New Testament, in Greek.) There’s no simple English equivalent for the Hebrew word nephesh, but it clearly doesn’t include the idea of an immortal, independent identity that can go on living after a person’s body dies. The Hebrew word ruach, translated as “spirit,” also means “breath” or “wind.”
The idea of an immortal soul was brought into Christianity from Greek philosophy. As a result, when we read the words soul and spirit in the Bible today, we think of the Greek idea of an immortal human soul. But this idea wasn’t in the minds of the Bible writers when they wrote the words nephesh, ruach, or psyche. Never, in all the 1,600 times the words soul and spirit occur in the Bible, are they ever called “immortal.” However, the Bible does tell us that God is “the King eternal, immortal, invisible” (1 Timothy 1:17). In fact, it says of Him that He “alone is immortal” (1 Timothy 6:15, 16).
The only way human beings can ever receive immortality and live forever is as a gift from God. It is the result of the gift of salvation that comes through Jesus Christ, “who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Timothy 1:10). The Bible promises that “whoever believes in him [Jesus] shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
Can we know when we’ll become immortal? The Bible paints a picture of how this will happen: “Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory’ ” (1 Corinthians 15:51–54; emphasis added).
Can we know when we’ll become immortal? The Bible paints a picture of how this will happen: “Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory’ ” (1 Corinthians 15:51–54; emphasis added).
Ever since sin came into this world, immortality is not the normal condition of the human soul—it comes only as a gift given to human beings because of Jesus’ death on the cross. It is a gift we receive from Jesus now, and it will be fully realized at His second coming when our bodies are raised from the grave and the mortal is clothed with immortality.
the very first lie
We must ask, why do so many Christians think we have “immortal souls” that go straight to heaven or hell when we die—and stay there for all eternity? This mistaken belief originated with the very first lie in all human history—the serpent’s words to Eve in the Garden of Eden. God had told Adam and her not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil lest they die.
The serpent hissed, “You will not certainly die. . . . God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:4, 5). But it was the serpent who lied when he said, “You will not die.” He told Eve that humans are not mortal—not destined to die. But once Adam and Eve bought into the lie and sinned, all human beings were destined to die. Throughout the ages since that time, most human beings have believed the lie started and perpetuated by Satan.
The Bible tells us that when God created Adam, He “formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” (Genesis 2:7). The human body plus the breath of life equals a living human being. When a person dies, the process is simply reversed. The body, without the breath of life, is no longer a living being. There’s no room in the Bible for the idea that when our eyes close in death, our spirit ascends to a higher, more exalted state.
The book of Ecclesiastes makes this point clearly:
For the living know that they will die,
but the dead know nothing;
they have no further reward,
and even their name is forgotten.
Their love, their hate
and their jealousy have long since vanished;
never again will they have a part
in anything that happens under the sun. . . .
Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the realm of the dead, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom (Ecclesiastes 9:5–10; emphasis added).
In His life here on earth, Jesus referred to death as “sleep” (see John 11:11–14), as did the apostle Paul (see 1 Thessalonians 4:13–16). In death, as in sleep, we are not conscious, and we cannot communicate. The Bible teaches that no one but God—no psychic, no medium, no mystic—has the power to awaken us from that sleep.
The next time you watch a funeral procession pass, you need not wonder whether the deceased is enduring the flames of hell or hovering up in heaven, watching the suffering of his grieving family below. With the breath of life gone, the dead person rests in a dreamless sleep—a sleep that will not be disturbed until Jesus comes again to resurrect to eternal life those who await His return. “For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first” (1 Thessalonians 4:16). That’s when every one of us who believes will become immortal!
Trudy Morgan-Cole writes from St. Johns, Newfoundland.
