Is there life after death?
Death is one of the few certainties every person shares, and the question of what lies beyond it is not answered by guesswork but by what God has said. The writers below hold that Scripture speaks plainly here: the soul survives, it is awake, its condition is settled at the moment of death, and Christ Himself is the only answer to it.
The Soul Survives the Body
The clearest proof offered is one Jesus used against people who denied any life beyond the grave. Centuries after Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were buried, God still spoke of Himself in the present tense as their God:
J T MawsonWhen did God say that? Centuries after those patriarchs had been laid in their graves... He did not say, "I was the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob." That disposes of the false notion that the dead have no consciousness, or cease to exist until the resurrection of the body. God is not the God of the dead but the living. If they had been extinct for the time being, He would have said, "I was their God." If He were looking forward to the resurrection He would have said, "I shall be," but He said neither.
Awake, Not Asleep
Some allow that the soul continues but imagine it unconscious until resurrection. Paul's own longing is used to rule that out:
W. W. FeredayWhat did Paul have in view when he said, "to depart and to be with Christ is far better," and "to die is gain"? Surely he was not longing for two thousand years of senselessness? How could that be "far better" than enjoying the love of Christ while labouring here? But he himself tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:8 that to be "absent from the body" is to be "present (or, at home) with the Lord."
What Scripture reveals about that state is short, and deliberately so:
Edward DennettThe only thing we know about the millions of saints who have passed away is that they are with Christ, which is very much better... I have often watched a dying saint, and the most wonderful thing that has struck me is that when the last pulse beats that soul is with the Lord.
Two Destinies, Settled at Death
Jesus' account of the rich man and Lazarus lifts the curtain on both sides of the divide, and on the barrier between them:
Leslie M. GrantAbraham solemnly reminded the rich man of his past and that of Lazarus, and adds that at death a great gulf has been fixed between the saved and the lost, so that it is impossible for anyone to cross over from one side to the other. All the prayers for the dead that man's "religion" can devise are useless. At death there is no doubt about a man's final destiny: it has been decided.
Death, Then Judgment
Because existence continues, dying settles nothing by itself. Hebrews 9:27 — "it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment" — is read as two halves of one certainty:
Samuel Ridout"It is appointed for man to die once" — that is only half the solemn truth. Equally appointed, equally certain: "after that comes judgment." Death, instead of being the end of everything, is rather the beginning. This present time is only the ante-chamber of eternity.
The Empty Tomb as Evidence
The Christian answer does not rest on feeling but on an event in history that can be examined:
W. W. FeredayThe resurrection of Christ is the keystone of the arch of Christianity. If this mighty fact could be shaken, the whole structure of our faith would totter and fall. But in the mercy of God the fact is beyond all quibble. The action of the authorities in sealing the stone and setting a watch, the unbelief of the disciples, and the large number of people who saw the Risen One during forty days — some even eating with Him — establish the fact beyond dispute for every reasonable mind.
Bodies Raised — On Two Different Principles
Life after death is not left as a bodiless state forever. Commentators here distinguish sharply between the two risings Jesus spoke of:
J. N. DarbyThe bodies of the saints are raised, and all is complete; and then comes the resurrection of judgment. Of believers it is said, "He will change our lowly bodies, and make them like His glorious body." But this is not the case with those who have walked in evil: they are raised for judgment.
A Life Death Cannot Touch
At Lazarus' grave Jesus made the question personal, offering not a theory about the afterlife but Himself:
The Bible TreasuryIn His presence a dead person would live, since He was the Resurrection; and in His presence a living person would never die, since He gave what is called "life more abundantly" — a life that death cannot touch.
Summary
- After — existence. God calls Himself the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob long after their burial; the soul is not extinguished when the body dies.
- After — consciousness. Paul called departing "far better," which would be meaningless if death meant centuries of unawareness.
- After — no second chance. The gulf in Jesus' account is fixed; a person's destiny is decided at death, not adjusted afterwards.
- After — judgment. Dying is only half the appointment; this life is the ante-chamber, not the end of the story.
- After — resurrection, on one of two lines. Some are raised to receive a body like Christ's glorious body; others are raised for judgment — and only Christ, the Resurrection and the Life, puts you on the first side.