Does Life After Death Have Proof?

The only undeniable proof of life after death is experiencing it. Belief in God and the Bible’s promises is crucial. Jesus’ miracles and resurrection offer insight into the afterlife. Near Death Experiences (NDEs) provide further evidence. Denying the existence of an afterlife due to lack of proof is self-deception and disregards the love of the Creator.

In the end, the only thing that will constitute seamless proof of life after death proof is experiencing it yourself. Once that happens, you had better hope that it is positive life after death because there probably isn’t a way to change course. Promises made in the Bible, experiences documented in the Bible, and more recent Near Death Experiences constitute the proof that you can have. God has put a premium on having faith. In this instance faith means, confidence that He exists (see my last blog entry), confidence that what the Bible records about Jesus actually happened, and confidence that God can and will deliver on His promises. Faith is confidence in something you cannot see.

What is your default belief about life after death and why? Some think it to be more intelligent and educated to only believe something they can experience first. To me that seems like a dangerous position, and I doubt that you follow it consistently. Must you see germs to believe in their existence? I think not. Must you die to believe it will happen to you? We need the experiences of others and sometimes revelation from God to fully understand what we are, what will happen to us, and what (if anything) exists beyond death.

Jesus demonstrated that He was not just an ordinary being. He did it through miracles and even bringing back people from the dead. People saw these things and were profoundly changed. Jesus gave a couple of pieces of insight into life after death to be noted here.

13 No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man

John 3:13 (ESV)

You may suspicious of someone who claims sole authority over the topic of the existence of Heaven, but Jesus wasn’t just some crazy person without evidence of His claims. He also said,

“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. 2 In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.

John 14:1-3 (ESV)

His testimony is that there is eternal life with God after death. He states that if this life is all we get, He would have said so. Trust Him or not.

Then there is Jesus’ own experience. To win a favorable outcome for us after death, Jesus had to fulfill some legal requirements. We are sinners. To deserve a place in Heaven on our own merits we would have to be sinless. The Bible’s testimony is that the default outcome for a human being upon death is bad–very bad. Jesus’ came so that there would be one route to something much better. To fulfill the “legal requirements” Jesus had to be human, live a sinless life, and pay for an already accumulated sentence on human sin. That included experiencing being damned while hanging on a cross and a physical death. His death was guaranteed and certified by professional executioners and was more than obvious to observers. Yet in three days He rose from the dead and was observed by over 500 people.

If that is not enough, then you must deal with the experiences of now thousands of people who have been clinically dead, experienced an out-of-body experience and then were revived. Recent studies have shown that our brain has a storm of activity right before it has none. It is tempting to attribute NDE’s to that storm and claim that they are just an illusion created by that storm. I would advance a different theory. That the “storm” is our soul separating from our brain. Not unlike the arcing seen when slowly pulling out an electrical plug. The storm is not the creator of the out-of-body experience.

Near Death Experiences include both Heaven and Sheolhttps://afterdeathsite.com/2021/08/17/examining-near-death-experiences/ , https://afterdeathsite.com/2023/11/14/how-is-sheol-different-than-hell/

Remaining confident that death is the end because there is no “proof” is a form of self-deception in my opinion. If someone doesn’t want God to exist, doesn’t want dependency on Jesus, doesn’t want judgment on sin, doesn’t want to change their worldview, they can tell themselves that proof for eternal life is not ironclad. They can also ignore the giant holes in the proof of their worldview. That will be throwing away the love of their Creator and a tremendous existence.

But Is There Proof?

The author has been blogging about the Bible’s perspective on life after death since 2016. Addressing doubts about Christianity, they argue that evidence from creation, the universe’s structure, and historical interactions supports the existence of God. They reference personal experiences and invite readers to explore related articles. Proof of life after death will be discussed in the next entry.

I have been blogging on the After Death Site every other week since 2016. It is fair to say that I am running out of topics. I have limited this blog to talking about what the Bible says about “unseen things”. In other words, what the Bible says about existence after death.

While navigating to WordPress to write this article, I came across another blog about why some have abandoned their Christian faith in favor of atheism or agnosticism. One reason was the lack of proof.

Considering what we are talking about, I would say that there is a great deal of proof. While there is no religion or worldview has seamless proof for its narrative, least of all atheism, the proof for the Bible’s narrative is strong.

Let’s start with the existence of God. The first form of evidence is creation itself. Living things are extremely complicated yet intricately engineered. As we peer into a cell we find a nano-factories performing advanced functions based on coded information wound into DNA. Claiming that this can be created by chance chemical interactions really lacks proof. It stretches credibility unless you are determined to explain away God. The vast assortment of life and its diversity also points to God. Nothing has shown that mutation can do this. Similar functions, like eco-location, can be found in disconnected parts of the theorized tree of life. The explanation of “convergent evolution” (the blind chance can find the same solution more than once) also stretches credibility. God is the best answer given the evidence that we have.

The same can be said for the structure of the universe. The laws of physics seem to be finely tuned for life to exist. Specifically, they seem tuned for life here. The explanation of our being a part of a multiverse where this universe came up lucky has got to be the most desperate and ridiculous idea I have ever heard. The universe is created and God did it is the best explanation.

Then there are the interactions. We can cast doubt on any reports of interaction with God that we didn’t experience. We still need to find a reasonable explanation. Big events like the Jewish exodus from Egypt seem too deep in history to prove or disprove. The life of Jesus is a different story. His miracles and resurrection recorded by eyewitnesses who lived at the time that Christianity burst into history certainly is proof of something. The explanations that claim all of this is an elaborate ruse makes no sense at all.

There are plenty of other more personal claims of interaction including my own. You can dismiss my claims as products of my imagination. In the end, it may not be proof for you, but I know better. I would not be a pastor without God’s clear lead. I hated the idea as a teen, yet here I am.

There is more that could be said. I would like to refer you over to my other blog:https://givingchrist.com/ I have multiple articles on that topic. As far as proof of life after death, I will tackle that in my next entry.

We Will Be Like Jesus

The passage from 1 John 3:2-3 describes the transformation believers will undergo in Heaven, becoming like Christ in love, joy, peace, and more. This transformation involves shedding selfishness, finding joy in everything, and experiencing complete peace and patience. Pursuing purification through self-examination, confession, and emulation of Jesus’ qualities brings fulfillment and prepares believers for their heavenly transformation.

I often think about what the experience of being in Heaven will be like. I’m not sure that I can wrap my mind around it. What I think less about is what I will be like in Heaven. Perhaps this need to change. John says:

2 Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. 3 And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.

1 John 3:2-3 (ESV)

I don’t think this is a comment about Jesus’ body plan. The Son of God became human when He was conceived in Mary’s womb. There is no reason to conclude that He is not human still. Nor is this passage a statement that we will take on the transcendent qualities of the Triune God: omniscience (knowing everything), omnipotence (be able to do anything), and omnipresence (being everywhere). It is a statement that we will have a completed set of Christ-like characteristics, as in love, joy, peace, patience, and so forth; and that we will be free of our sinful nature and its characteristics.

What will that be like? Currently, we will have to deal with a degree of selfishness in ourselves. In Heaven and the New Earth, we will be absorbed in caring about the people around us. There will be no shortages or need to compete for resources, but we wouldn’t if there were. Other people will be the same and care about us.

We will find joy in everything rather than negativity. Now there are reasons for negativity because the world is damaged by the curse. Heaven will not be same. Nonetheless, we will be able to find joy in every aspect of God’s creation. If endless wonder sounds exhausting to you, or boring, it won’t be those limitations are a part of your current flesh.

How about complete peace? No worries. There will literally be nothing to worry about, but we also would not inclined to worry if there were. People pursue this kind of freedom through drugs or alcohol now. Only these things only mask problems and create more.

Patience. We can all use some more for this frustrating world. In Heaven patience will be abundant because of our character but the need for it non-existent.

Our Heavenly bodies will be perfected for a human body, but we will also be in a perfected environment. The experience is hard to comprehend. Still for those of us who are connected to Jesus through a mystical union which God creates through baptism, we not only have reason to be certain that this is our destiny, we also are eager for it to begin.

That is why John says that we “purify” ourselves as Jesus is pure. Our current status with respect to sin’s guilt and damages is a little complicated. With respect to God’s Law, we are already perfect. We are seen as having the perfection of Jesus. This results in our having eternal life.

For now, we still have sinful nature and live in a sinful environment so this will result in unacceptable behavior in thoughts, words, deeds, bad motivations, and failures to act in good ways. This is what can be limited. We seek to purify ourselves from these things now, even though we can’t eliminate our sinfulness (it is in our DNA).

What can be done? You start by knowing God’s Law and identifying what God shows you to be wrong. You don’t dismiss it or live in denial. You don’t rationalize why you did it. You confess it to God and ask for His forgiveness. Now technically, you are already forgiven and have been since your baptism. Confessing sins is primarily about containing the damage caused by our sinfulness and becoming more like what we will be at death. Self-examination and confession may not feel affirming, but we get our self-esteem from God’s love and the value He puts on us. Repentance and confession is about improvement.

We can do more. Studying the qualities of Jesus noted in Scripture, praying about them, and choosing to act appropriately does even more. Will stuff slip through? Yes. There is a “natural” limit of what can be achieved while still stuck with our sin altered bodies. But pressing toward what we will be is not only consistent with our hopes, it has its own rewards.

How should we act toward others as we pursue purification? You don’t want to fall off the other side of the log by becoming a self-righteous, holier-than-thou. Jesus liked those people the least. We can rebuke others as a sinner who is in the same situation, we can encourage, we can pronounce God’s forgiveness. These things are love rather than competition.

The pursuit of “purification” or sanctification (to be made holy) will make our transformation at death more satisfying. It will not “steal the thunder”. Sanctification is a good thing that we can start to enjoy right now.

Your Body, Soul and Spirit

A big question that affects both life and life after death is, “What are we?” You would think that we would know this answer before anything else, but this question is very deep.

Those with a materialistic world view would say that we are just a body. To be crasser about it, one famous evolutionist says that we are just “machines made out of meat.” We are just chemistry doing what chemistry does. This philosophy either makes you feel liberated to do whatever feels good or plunges you into the depth of despair because you are nothing. You have no purpose. You have no future.

The machine made from meat idea obviously doesn’t agree with Scripture. I would have to say that it does meet with experience either.

Another view is to see yourself as just your consciousness. That you are a spiritual being temporarily occupying a physical form. This worldview has the support of the fact that we will all die and our bodies will decay (unless we are alive at Jesus’ return). It doesn’t have the support of both Jesus’ resurrection and the promise of our own resurrection. The earthly body may need a total remake, but it is an important part of you.

I would like to consider the following passage:

23 Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Thessalonians 5:23 (ESV)

Words mean what they writer thinks that mean. So someone may use soul and spirit as synonyms, while another is thinking of two distinct things. Since Scripture is inspired by the Holy Spirit, I would expect that these words have distinct meanings, especially considering this one:

12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

Hebrews 4:12 (ESV)

The Greek behind “soul and spirit” is “psyche” and “pneuma”. I don’t think we should get too Freudian because of psyche. I like this definition, “The psyche is the is life that the spirit gives to the body as long as the two are connected.” (R.C.H. Lenski) So our soul is our consciousness which includes such things as thoughts, emotions, feelings, desires, memories. The spirit is the immaterial/extra-dimensional part of what we are. This definition is backed by how the word “soul” is used throughout Scripture. For example:

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.

Psalm 139:14 (ESV)

Our spirit then becomes something that we experience indirectly. At death our spirit and our bodies are divided because of sin. What do we “experience” then? Near Death Experiences may give some insight. If we are temporarily dead, then perhaps we are temporarily in a state of separation of spirit and body. We have senses but they don’t use our sensory organs. For example, people can “see” things in the operating room with their eyes closed and their brain flat-lined. We may feel that our spirit is all that we need and that a body and the embodiment of our spirit (our soul) is not necessary. But we have been created to be embodied. Hence the resurrection.

While the information about such details is sparse, I believe that even our experience of Heaven prior to our resurrection is embodied. It is just a body that is a part of Heaven’s time and space. More about that here:https://afterdeathsite.com/2020/02/04/we-will-be-made-multi-dimensional/

Eventually, we will have and will be both a being who can exist in this universe and one that can exist in Heaven: One spirit, a resurrected Earthly body and a soul from the interaction of the two, also a Heavenly body and a soul for that embodiment.

When Nobody Speaks Your Name

There is a tradition common among several cultures that speaks about dying twice. The first is when you physically die. The second is when you are forgotten, and nobody speaks your name. Variations on this belief can lead to distinctive practices. For instance, some cultures will memorize their family tree. Others will mummify their ancestors and take them out for special occasions, or there will be some other form of ritual to ensure that the ancestor is remembered. The Disney movie, Coco, incorporates this idea. Is it necessary to be remembered? What happens if you are forgotten?

Unless you are somebody who is quite famous or infamous, it is guaranteed that people will eventually forget your name. I have had a lot of success with researching my family tree. One branch I can trace back to before 1000 AD with a decent amount of certainty. The other branches don’t go back so far. They are likely forgotten by all. Hundreds of millions and perhaps billions have lived and died and left no living memory of themselves. Perhaps it is why some might do horrible things in hopes of just being remembered.

Let’s make this clear. Eternal life is not just being remembered by someone. Eternal life is being remembered by God. God forsakes and forgets the damned. But the dead in Christ continue to exist and live in happiness in the presence of God with or without being remembered.

And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: 32 ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.”

Matthew 22:31-32(ESV)

Is it a lack of faith that leads some to doubt that those who die can be alive elsewhere? I once went on a tour of Israel. At the Church of the Holy Sepulchre there is an area that holds the traditional place of Jesus’ crucifixion. The very place where Jesus died to win for us eternal life is encased by three altars. We were in the central chapel while a Roman Catholic tour group was in the chapel next to us. I overheard the priest say something like this, “I don’t know what eternal life is, but would like to think that is has something to do with being remembered.” I was dumbfounded by this dumb idea. Eternal life has nothing to do with being remembered and we should celebrate that fact.

It is nice to remember somebody. But I assure you that they probably don’t know if you remember them or not, and their existence is in no way diminished or enhanced if you do. Memory is for our benefit. We can learn from the past. We can have an important thankfulness for what people did to make our present possible. But only Christ makes eternal life possible.

Heavenly Free Will

It is exciting to think about what our bodies may be like in Heaven and the New Earth. Can we move between Heaven and the New Earth? I think we will. Will we be stronger, faster, bigger, more coordinated? Will we look significantly different? Will we still be recognizable? All these things are mysterious and exciting, but I find one question disconcerting. Will we have freewill and if so, could not the whole cycle of sin start again?

There are a few things that we either know or can infer about the initial creation. Adam and Eve had completely free wills and had no knowledge of sin. They had one command and therefore only one way to mess up. The temptation to sin came externally from Satan. Satan was also created with a completely free will. Only vague information is given about His fall into sin:

You were blameless in your ways
    from the day you were created,
    till unrighteousness was found in you.
16 In the abundance of your trade
    you were filled with violence in your midst, and you sinned;
so I cast you as a profane thing from the mountain of God,
    and I destroyed you, O guardian cherub,
    from the midst of the stones of fire.

Ezekiel 28:15-16 (ESV)

Angels were also impacted. Nothing is known about the mechanism of their fall, but an approximate proportion is given:

3 And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems. 4 His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. 

Revelation 12:3-4 (ESV)

If this is about the angels, then, somehow, two-thirds remained without sin despite the availability of a way to fall.

In Heaven and the New Earth, Satan is out of the equation. Also gone is the genetic distortion that we refer to as our sinful nature. Is that enough to preclude sin? Will we not also still have “knowledge of good and evil”?

In Heaven and the New Earth, there will also not be a way to be linked to somebody else’s sin. Adam and Eve made the choice. We inherited their genetic distortion.

God has always sought love from His creation. Love requires freewill. To love you I must have the opportunity to hate you. So I expect that there will be an opportunity to fall away. A forbidden tree in the garden. I also expect that knowledge of evil will be an advantage this time. No one will be seriously tempted to rebel against God because we will have genuine love, a great existence and a knowledge of what rebellion means. An individual’s rebellion would not bring down the house. Perhaps that is why this passage is there:

No more shall there be in it
    an infant who lives but a few days,
    or an old man who does not fill out his days,
for the young man shall die a hundred years old,
    and the sinner a hundred years old shall be accursed.

Isaiah 65:20 (ESV)

https://afterdeathsite.com/?s=Isaiah+65

If you feel a dread that you would choose to sin and be cast out of God’s Kingdom, just like a child who insists on putting their hand on a hot stove, don’t worry. Your attraction to do wrong is a part of your sinful nature. There won’t be a temptation to the forbidden. Your knowledge will keep you away, as well as, the presence of Jesus himself.

Our experience of Heaven and the New Earth is something to look forward to rather than something to dread. Stick with Jesus and I’ll see you there.

Honoring the Elders

When I am bored sometimes, I scroll through Instagram to find an interesting video. One caught my eye yesterday. It showed a man bringing out a mummified human from a grass hut in central New Guinea. Having a mummified descendent in their home was a way for this tribe to “honor their elders.”

I clearly come from a different culture. I wasn’t that thrilled about having my parents over for a long time when they were alive. 

Honoring elders is a large part of many cultures. It is understandable why that would be. Death often creates a great sense of loss. Incorporating communication and other ritual that involves the deceased keeps them emotionally close. If you depended on the knowledge of an older generation, you might seek to have a knowledge stream continue after death. Finally, if your sense of having a relationship with God is very vague, continuing a relationship with dead ancestors might be a substitute.

Certain cultures may have stumbled or were presented with ways to communicate with the dead. Seances and Ouija are more contemporary methods of communication with the dead. The Bible also records efforts of the Canaanites to do this and there is the story of the Witch of Endor (1 Samuel 28).

Whether out of grief, need, or a sense of responsibility, honoring your deceased elders needs to have definite limits. Great danger lies in crossing the line. God warned the Israelites not to copy the practices of the people of Canaan.

9 “When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. 10 There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer 11 or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, 12 for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord. And because of these abominations the Lord your God is driving them out before you.

Deuteronomy 18:9-12 (ESV)

Many people today would scoff at the suggestion that these things are even possible. But think about the following:

  1. The dead are not non-existent. Even the damned are somewhere.
  2. Creating communication with any of the dead before Jesus, or those who are still in Sheol today, is a matter of bridging the separation between Sheol and Earth.
  3. While there are no natural ways of doing this, it appears that a form of “spiritual gift” can do this.
  4. Since God forbids it, this spiritual gift comes from the power of Satan. (Pharoah’s “magicians” were able to copy Moses’ sign of turning a staff into a snake and also the plague of frogs)

Many so-called mediums are just clever con-artists. That doesn’t negate the possibility that darker means are not legitimate. But one has to consider whether attempting to exercise such a power “honors” or “dishonors” our elders. 

Disobeying God is never honorable. Why would God forbid a connection that would ease our grief? We are not privy to this answer, but several theories come to mind. First, are we treating elders like God? God will act on our behalf, dead elders can’t. God hears our prayers, dead elders can’t. Death is a consequence of sin. It is a temporary or permanent separation we must accept. God is the source of information about life after death. Information sought from dead elders may be misinformation from the evil one. 

Playing around with or seriously using purported means of communicating with the dead also seems to expose people to more serious control of the demonic.

The most famous case in the U.S. was the source of the book and movie, The Exorcist. The event happening in 1949 in Maryland and was documented by the Washington Post. A boy and his spiritist aunt played around with a Ouija board to attempt communication with the dead. When the aunt died, the grieving boy attempted the use of the same method. What happened instead was a terrifying case of supernatural events and possession that finally ended in a hospital in St. Louis. The location of their home in Cottage City, MD continued to be surrounded by horrifying phenomena. A woman was found decaying in a plastic bag nearby. A man went crazy and decapitated his mother a few doors away. Also nearby, children were arrested for hacking off the limbs of their parents. The forces of Satan are not our friends.

There is one other reason to temper communication attempts with our dead. We may not wish to hear it. Heaven is awesome. When we die in Christ, we are swept away in joy and love and probably think very little about the life we have left. Nor do we have to. God is on the job to help those still on Earth.

What would be appropriate honoring of the dead? Speak well of them. Imagine them in their new glorious state. Flowers and visiting the grave is good. Talking to them might be therapeutic for you. Don’t imagine that they are birds at your feeder (I don’t know where that idea comes from). More importantly, honor your elders while they are here with you. Make sure they know and believe that eternal life comes from Jesus’ life and death. Then honor God with your life. Over-dependency on people both in life and especially in death is a bad thing. 

When Does Eternal Life Begin?

Does this title seem like a stupid question? I hope to show you that it is more complicated than you first think. It depends on the definition of “eternal life”, so let’s start with that.

God has made human beings to be eternal creatures. Once we have begun our existence there is an innate quality that preserves our existence forever. It is part of being created in the “image of God”

26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

27 So God created man in his own image,
    in the image of God he created him;
    male and female he created them

Genesis 1:26-27 (ESV)

When do we begin? The answer is probably conception. Our body and our unique genetic code begin then, and these are definitely a part of our being. The body is not just a rental. Does our spirit/soul begin then? We have no information. I think there is reason to say that the soul does not pre-exist our body, but it is possible that there might be a lapse between conception and having a soul.

The Bible does not care to refer to our existence as sinful human beings as “life”. I’ll call it “existence” instead. A definite change in our existence happens with baptism in the name of the Triune God. Baptism doesn’t look or feel like much, but God’s promise is forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38). When you dig down into how we receive the forgiveness of sins, you find that these things needed to happen: Jesus, as a human, had to fulfill God’s Law perfectly, He then had to pay the Laws demands for a sinner on the cross (namely be forsaken by God), then an individual needs to be spiritually united with Jesus for Jesus’ actions to apply to him or her. God normally accomplishes the last one through baptism. I want to emphasize that this is the function of baptism, not a “sinner’s prayer”, nor coming to intellectual faith. So you could say that eternal life begins at baptism even though you still carry around an earthly body that is doomed to die.

The next choice, and most popular choice, is your physical death. At death, if you are in Christ (still connected by what God does at baptism), you temporarily leave your earthly, sinful body and your soul now joins with a heavenly body restricted to Heaven. 

 For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

2 Corinthians 5:1 (ESV)

Being in Heaven does not feel like a restriction. It feels like life that is truly life and we can call it “life”. It is not complete, however. Part of you is missing still. You are your spirit/soul, your heavenly body, and your earthly body. Like I said, your earthly body is not a rental.

Eternal life made complete happens with Judgment Day and the resurrection of the body. All portions that make up what we are will be redeemed at that point. https://afterdeathsite.com/2020/02/04/we-will-be-made-multi-dimensional/

So, when does eternal life begin? You may pick the answer. Realize the process God has put in place for us. An uglier but parallel process exists for those who reject Jesus. Also understand what you are and what produces the complete you.

Weeping and Gnashing of Teeth

One of the problems with describing our existence after death is the limitations of words. Words have meaning because we can relate them to experience. If you have never experienced anything even similar to the glory of Heaven and the New Earth then all you can do is explain what is not there. Similarly, if you have not experienced the depth of sorrow, pain or hopelessness that characterizes Sheol or Hell, what do you say? 

The Bible pulls out a few negative experiences that happen on Earth to help us to understand damnation. Speaking of Hades/Sheol Jesus speaks of fire and the worm that never dies. Most of us have been burned at some time. It is intense pain. Many of us have seen maggots doing their work. The smell and the disgusting sight quickly elicits the gag reflex. Does this mean that there is actual fire and maggots? Maybe. It certainly means that the experience is intensely awful. 

A frequently used clause to communicate the horror of being exiled from God is the phrase, “weeping and gnashing of teeth.” All of the occurrences of this phrase are in the Gospels and out of the mouth of Jesus. Most are found in Matthew. Here are some examples:

11 I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, 12 while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Matthew 8:11-12 (ESV)

The context is Jesus responding to the faith of the Centurion. He is bemoaning the fact that many of the Jews will not enter Heaven because of their lack of faith in Him. ”Outer darkness” conveys that Hell segregated away from God’s presence in some way. Darkness is an often-used descriptor for a number of things including ignorance, evil and the literal lack of light. Could all of these apply to the experience of Hell or even to a lesser extent Sheol? You and all around you are evil. Nobody can trust anybody. There are no bonds, or friendship or kindness. God and good feel like a distant dream. Maybe you do not even understand why you are there.

C.S. Lewis, in his book The Great Divorce, describes some of the inhabitants of Hell as firmly convinced that they are innocent and unjustly damned. Even when they are given the opportunity to enter Heaven by grace they resist. They live in the darkness of ignorance about themselves. 

Then Jesus uses the phrase “weeping and gnashing of teeth”. I expect that is a very literal description. What does the phrase connote? With damnation being an eternal sentence, all hope is loss and joy consumed. All good things come from God, so if God forsakes you, there are no good things. The sorrow must be overwhelming and so is the weeping. 

I have never been a tooth-grinder, but I can easily imagine such stress that one would grind their teeth together. Another reason for the gnashing of teeth may be anger. If not overcome by sorrow, a person may be filled with rage at God. It doesn’t matter which, both are horrible conditions that were avoidable since Jesus died for all.

Jesus also works this phrase into a bunch of parables that describe Judgment Day. The first is The Parable of the Weeds. This little story just conveys the fact that God is able to separate those who belong to Him from those who reject Him.

41 The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, 42 and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Matthew 13:41-42 (ESV)

A similar message is given using the same phrase in The Parable of the Net, Matthew 13:49-50. 

Then in The Parable of the Wedding Banquet, (Matthew 22:2-14) Jesus uses the phrase again to describe someone who is cast out of the banquet because they are not wearing “wedding clothes”. These “clothes” are the righteous of Jesus which are provided for a person. Just as the Gospel tells us that salvation is the gift of God and that Jesus provides the necessary righteousness through His obedient life and His forsakeness on the cross, so the clothes are a God’s grace to us but not optional.

A similar point is made in The Parable of the Talents, (Matthew 25:14-30). Here the person who is cast out does not invest the one talent (a unit of money) that the Master gives Him. This is not to suggest we are saved by a minimum level of good stewardship. The one talent must represent knowledge of the Gospel which the wicked servant buries. His punishment is to be cast “outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

There are a few more, but you get the point. ”Weeping and gnashing of teeth” is Jesus’ most used phrase to describe Hell. It gets to the emotional side of the experience. It is not an experience that anyone would want. Some people erroneously think of Hell as a party for those who prefer an immoral life. Nothing could be further from the truth. To be thrown out from any presence of God is devastating even for those who hate God. There is no party, pleasure or friendship–only suffering and hopelessness.

Jesus: God in the Flesh

Without an amazing act of love that we celebrate at Christmas there would be no point in writing or thinking about eternal life, because all that would be waiting for us would be judgement. The miracle of Christmas is all about God becoming human. But what does that mean? The discussion below is largely theoretical based on the little information that we have.

Jesus is a unique being in several ways. First, He is a being that pre-existed His conception as a human. The rest of us started our existence at conception. We were not a soul waiting to jump into a body. Jesus is the Son of God — a being united with the Father in a way that none of us can understand. Still, the Son of God is known to have acted as a distinct person in the creation of the world, in interacting with Israel during Old Testament times, and probably in many other ways. This being was a spirit. What’s a “spirit”? It is an intelligent, powerful being that has no set physical or observable form. A spirit can take on a form and “manifest” itself, but it is not bound to that form. When Jesus “manifested” in the Old Testament, as when three visitors came to Abraham, we refer to Him as the “pre-incarnate” Christ. Incarnating is not the same as manifesting.

There is no biblical glossary that sets down the defining parameters of what it means to be a spirit or spiritual. Similarly, theological terms like incarnate, pre-incarnate, triune or manifest are subject to the understanding of the user. The definition of “spirit” above is my own as I struggle to understand God, Angels, Seraphim, and ultimately humans and myself. For now, I will stand with my definition of what God and the Son of God is.

I believe Angels and Seraphim are slightly different, even though the Bible speaks of angels as “ministering spirits”. In their formal space, that of Heaven, I expect that individual Angels and Seraphim have a set form. They also seem to have the ability to access our space, this Universe, and here they can “manifest” taking any form that they wish. This would be true of Satan (a Seraphim) and demons (Angels), only now they are excluded from Heaven.

For the time being, living human beings are stuck here with a set form. We have a body, and that body’s form cannot be shifted (not including surgery). When we die, we temporarily leave our “Earthly” body behind. If we are connected to Christ, we go to Heaven and assume a Heavenly body, which again has a set form (superior to what we left behind). We cannot return to this time-space, until we return with Jesus at Judgement Day.

Christmas is the story of the Son of God volunteering to doing something that is very restricting to Him yet is a marvelous act of sacrificial love. He takes on a set human form. By incarnating rather than manifesting the Son of God is stuck with this union. He becomes Jesus.

The Angels are said to have marveled at this. They likely marveled not so much at the fact that God could do this, but rather that He would. It is akin to our choosing to be a rat. The reasoning for it is clear and beautiful. God became human so that humans could have a chance at eternal life with Him.

God is a being of laws. He had the sovereign power to ignore His laws and save sinful humans simply because He wanted to. That is not God’s idea of justice. The Law had to be fulfilled and a sinless human being would do it. Because of the process of how our sinful human nature is spread (by heredity), there was no and would be no sinless human being; so the Son of God became one. A virgin birth avoided the inheritance of a sinful nature. The incarnation put the Son of God under the Law.

The fact that Jesus is the incarnate Son of God also made possible that human beings like us could be united with Jesus in a way similar to how the Son of God is united to the Father and the Holy Spirit. This allows us to have the righteousness of Jesus and for Jesus’ forsakeness on the cross to apply to us.

20 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

John 17:20-21 (ESV)

Many people think this prayer of Jesus is unfulfilled, because the Christian church is divided structurally and doctrinally. That is incorrect. We are all united in some supernatural way to Jesus and therefore to each other. This saves us.

At Judgement Day we will take the final step of our salvation. We will acquire a resurrected, spiritual body. (1 Corinthians 15:44f) What does that mean? I don’t think it means that we will be like God without form, but rather a form for this Universe and a form for Heaven with the ability to move between both. Could that be a misread? Absolutely. Whatever having a spiritual body means, it will be great; and it will be because the Son of God chose transformation of Himself.

Does Jesus remain human? I think so. What will that look like? We will find out.